Only a couple of days after Greensboro’s News & Record ran an article titled Wolfpack has little to show on NCAA Resume. Today, it looks like Technician and The News & Observer are catching on to the picture that I have been trying to paint on the Blog and elsewhere for a couple of weeks — making the NCAA Tournament is not going to be easy for this talented Wolfpack squad whose senior class was ranked the #3 recruiting class in the country when they graduated High School and includes the ACC Player of the Year.
Technician proclaims today that the Pack has No Margin for Error while the N&O explains that the Pack is on Thin Ice.
I understand the media’s responsibility to focus on reporting the news as opposed to participating in speculation as the season progresses, so I can’t give them too much grief for being a little late to the party of understanding the plight of the Pack. But, I must admit that does amaze me that so many fans absolutely refuse to face the truth (often times even after it becomes fact).
Here is the deal…State actually begins every ACC with “no margin for error”. The problem with State right now is that, despite having no margin for error…we continue to screw up.
State’s phenomenally weak out of conference schedule (again this year ranked worse than #250 the country) coupled with annual poor performance against that schedule, creates a situation where the Pack effectively never has any margin for error in ACC play based on on our position at the beginning of every conference season.
While Florida State was earning a Tourney bid a few years ago with a 6-10 conference record, State would have legitimately only been an NCAA bubble team this season even if we were to approach 8-8 in conference because of poor out of conference performance against a weak schedule (Also, don’t forget the dilutive impact of replacing a trip to Cameron Indoor with a trip Virginia Tech. 8-8 in the ACC isn’t what it used to be).
