NC State’s miracle March is proof the NCAA tournament is perfect as is

Watching the euphoria spread Inside the locker room at North Carolina State University It was easy to forget that there was a time Friday night when a majority of Wolfpack fans were ready to run head coach Kevin Keatts out of town.

There was a time when it was a matter of life or death for North Carolina State to beat Louisville, perhaps the worst power conference team in college basketball this season.

That there was a time when it was easy to wonder if State’s nearly 10-year absence from the Sweet 16 would last another decade, or even longer.

That was 17 days ago.

Playing in a terrifying opening Tuesday of the ACC Tournament, North Carolina State trailed Louisville (a team that had lost seven straight and finished last in the league’s regular season standings by three games) by one point at halftime. Despite the game being tied at 75 with just over four minutes remaining, Keats’ team made the plays it needed to escape with a 94-85 victory and extend the season at least one more day.

When the official Twitter account for North Carolina State University men’s basketball posted a simple graphic with the final score of the game, the reaction from fans was… less than enthusiastic.

Yes, that was the general vibe as North Carolina State turned its attention to Syracuse in a 7-on-10 matchup on Wednesday.

By now we all know what happened next. State beat the Orange the next day, stunned Duke the day after that and defeated Virginia in the semifinals. Wild game tying shot at end regulationand defeated ACC final boss North Carolina to win the league tournament for the first time since 1987 and earn a ticket to the Big Dance.

In an incredible run, the Wolfpack won five games in five days and became just the second team in college basketball history to win a conference tournament title. Their company? The 2010-11 Connecticut Huskies used the momentum from winning the Big East tournament to win six more games and win the national championship.

The Pack had already lost 14 games before the ACC Tournament began, and had they been eliminated at any point, they would have had a hard time earning an invitation to the NIT, let alone the NCAA Tournament. We are a team. DC, it was a good story, but it wasn’t. that’s good.

Or so we thought.

Since the ACC Tournament opener on March 12, North Carolina State has looked like a different team — a phrase that gets thrown around a lot this time of year, but rarely more applicable than it is — a completely different team. is. The team entered the postseason on a four-game losing streak, defeating Texas Tech (13 points), Cinderella Oakland and second-seeded Marquette (9 points) to advance to the regional finals for the first time since 1986.

This team’s run naturally draws comparisons to the most famous March run in NC State (and perhaps NCAA) history: Jim Valvano’s famous long shot to the 1983 national championship. is often done. After an impressive performance in the Sweet 16, that team needed to pull off an upset against heavily favored ACC foe Virginia to earn a spot in the Final Four.

The only thing standing between North Carolina State and becoming the first Wolfpack team to reach the Final Four since the ’83 team was hating Duke, another ACC powerhouse.

I’m starting to feel more poetic than DJ Burns. drive, spin, dish In the lane.

One of the underlying storylines of this tournament is the looming threat of expansion and pre-tournament comments by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, despite having more value in the tournament’s current setup. He said it was possible to “give away” the bid to the winner of a smaller conference tournament. Power conference teams with 15 or 16 losses were relegated to the NIT or below.

As I expected, Several used North Carolina State’s wild run as proof that Sankey actually had a point, despite being mobbed all month.

After all, if a team that finished 10th in America’s sixth-best conference can do something like this, how many other Will Huntsmen would be left out of March Madness?

In reality, North Carolina State is a perfect example of why college basketball’s current postseason structure is nearly perfect.

Keats always had what it took to have a successful season. Barnes is a unicorn, a 290-pound pile of a guy with soft hands, nimble feet, and incredible passing instincts. DJ Horn, a transfer to Arizona State University, was a pure scorer throughout his college career. Casey Morsell and Jayden Taylor gained big game experience before coming to Raleigh from their time at the University of Virginia and Butler University, respectively.

“That run has been magical, but I’d like to say we knew it from day one,” Horn said after the win over Marquette. “We knew we were a good team. It’s all just a matter of really understanding and understanding our role, and there’s never been a better time to do that. .”

For some reason, that lock and understanding didn’t happen for the first four months of the season.

NC State lost all three nonconference games against teams ranked in the top 100 by KenPom. Conference play wasn’t very good. After an up-and-down first month and a half, they dropped seven of their last nine games to finish 9-11 in the ACC, a record that puts the seventh-year head coach squarely in the middle of a hot season. It was a disappointing enough result. .

But this is the great thing about college basketball. Even after four months of disappointment, there’s still an opportunity to unearth unrealized potential, take a shot now that you’re fully healthy, or try something new out of nothing. I’ve been working on it. You still have the opportunity to play until you lose.

Major conference teams that haven’t shown any signs of being capable. consistently You don’t need talented entry into the sport’s premier event to play with the sport’s elite. why? Because they already have the opportunity to earn it. They have already been given the opportunity to play until they lose, just like everyone else.

Every high achiever has the opportunity to become a hero. Every struggling fan base has a chance to experience the March Miracle. Every coach in the hot seat has the opportunity to earn a contract extension of, let’s say… two years.

There was nothing to suggest North Carolina State would be competitive from November to February, even in neutral court games against the teams it beat in March. But they still had a chance to play until they lost.

They’re still playing and we’re doing it even better.