Will NC State earn at-large bid to NCAA Tournament? Latest projections, résumé heading into selection

For those in and around the NC State baseball program, the last five days have likely been filled with an uneasy waiting game going into the NCAA Tournament selection show. 

Did the Wolfpack do enough in the regular season to earn a coveted at-large bid to the field? Or did the late-season slide with three ACC series losses over the last four conference weekends end the program’s season earlier than expected? 

Those are the questions that many in Raleigh have probably asked themselves over the last week or so. But from veteran coach Elliott Avent’s point of view, the Pack should be in the tournament for the 10th time in the last 11 years the event has been played. 

“We played the toughest schedule in the ACC,” Avent said after a 21-12 loss to Duke in the conference tournament last Wednesday at Truist Field in Charlotte. “To get 14 wins with the toughest schedule in the ACC definitely gets us to a regional bid, unless there are tons of upsets in conference tournaments.”

There weren’t many upsets in conference tournaments, just one to be certain with Mercer’s early exit in the SoCon. Other than that, the rest of the one-bid leagues went as expected over the past week of postseason action. 

So, with that said, where does NC State stand heading into Monday’s selection show (12 p.m. ET, ESPN2)? TheWolfpacker.com compiled four major bracket projections to see where the team is trending with its full body of work.

Where NC State lands in bracketology

D1Baseball projected NC State as one of the last four teams into the tournament with Avent’s retirement announcement being what pushed the program’s case over the top. In this bracket prediction, the Wolfpack would be sent to the Tuscaloosa Regional, where it would meet No. 27 Arizona State in the opening round game. Host squad Alabama, the No. 7 overall seed and Lipscomb are the other two squads that make up the first weekend in the bracket.

USA TODAY also included the Wolfpack in the field, placing Avent’s team as the final at-large selection into the field. NC State would travel to the Athens Regional, where it would face No. 30 Missouri State, while No. 3 Georgia, the host, and St. John’s would fill out this weekend field in SEC country.

Baseball America, meanwhile, had the Pack has the first team out of the field. Jacob Rudner, who predicts the bracket for the outlet, noted the program’s case for the tournament is short of what Notre Dame had last season in its miss of the field with the same total of ACC wins (14) but a lower RPI.

“Maybe it happens. Maybe NC State sneaks into the field and Elliott Avent gets one final NCAA Tournament run to close out his Hall of Fame career,” Rudner wrote. “But strictly from a resume standpoint, we didn’t believe the Wolfpack’s case was obvious enough to project safely into the field.”

On3, similarly, projected NC State would miss the tournament as the second team on the outside looking in, despite eight ACC teams making the field. In that scenario, Virginia Tech was one of the last four teams to make the cut after it took two of three from the Wolfpack in the regular season meeting in Blacksburg in late April. 

NC State’s NCAA Tournament résumé

RPI: 50	vs. Q1: 5-11
DSR: 37	vs. Q2: 8-5
KPI: 40	vs. Q3: 6-3
Overall SOS: 33	vs. Q4: 13-3
NC SOS: 244	vs. projected NCAA teams: 11-15