Of course the HSSS crowd is still out in decent force on the Pack Pride Message Boards. I’ve been able to deduce that the new mantra is very similar to the old mantra — tout the overall “success” that this basketball season seems to be producing by looking at State’s overall record and damn everything else.
If the REAL motivation and desire is to truly paint an accurate portrait of State’s season to this point, then please allow me to share some quick numbers without ignoring the fact that State padded its win total with a disproportionately large number of games against grossly weak out of conference opponents:
* 21-6 Overall
* 10-4 ACC
* 2nd Place ACC Standings
* 3rd ACC Team in RPI
* #24 RPI
* #15 in Sagarin
* 0-4 vs RPI’s Top 25
* 2-5 vs Teams projected in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN
* 4-4 vs RPI’s Top 50
* 10-5 vs RPI’s Top 100
* 13-6 vs RPI’s Top 200
* NC State’s 0 wins against the RPI’s Top 25 rate last in the country in wins against teams in the Top 25.
* NC State’s 4 wins against the RPI’s Top 50 rate #21 in total wins (not winning percentage). vs teams in the Top 50.
* NC State’s 6 wins against teams rated between #51 – 100 rank 7th in the country for games won vs #51-100
(Please don’t pick on me for the last three points. I included them for “Dan”).
* Other than NC State, Arizona and Missouri State are the only two teams in the RPI’s Top 25 to have yet to defeat a single Top 25 team.
* Of the RPI’s Top 25, only five programs have played less games against Top 25 competition than NC State.
* State is 0-4 vs the RPI’s Top 25. Despite State’s ^comparably small number of games played against Top 25 opponents, only four of the top 50 teams in the RPI have a 4 (or more) game negative disparity between the number of wins and number of losses vs Top 25 opponnents.
* Only one team in the RPI’s Top 25 has played more opponents rated 200+ than NC State (8 opponents).
* Only four teams in the RPI’s Top 50 have played more opponents rated 200+ than NC State. One of them being the “great” George Washington (who has played 10)
Note: I think that all of this information is pretty interesting. It is factual. It is unique (have you seen it anywhere else?). And it required a little work to put together. I find it more than a little “interesting” that this exact post was DELETED from a thread on Pack Pride’s Message Boards earlier today. All I did was post factual bullet points and nothing else. Just wanted to give you the heads up in the event that you ever post some facts and information that any of their moderators may not want other people to know about.