According to a poster on the Pack Pride message boards, Sidney Lowe announced at the Asheville WPC Caravan a two game series with Syracuse starting with a trip to the Carrier Dome next season. This adds to what appears to be the most exciting out-of-conference schedule in a long time.
It was announced last week that the Pack will go on the road to face Wisconsin as part of the annual ACC/Big 10 Challenge. Additionally, six of the eight teams in the Charleston Classic are official with Georgetown and NC State headlining the field. The 2009 tournament included four teams from BCS conferences, so it will be interesting to see who ESPN adds to round out the field. Other teams already participating are Wofford, East Carolina, Charlotte and George Mason. This event is held November 18th-21st in the College of Charleston’s basketball arena in downtown Charleston. This sounds like a great opportunity for a road trip with the football team visiting UNC that weekend. The arena only holds 5100 people and has been well attended in the past.
While the game against Georgetown isn’t guaranteed to happen, Lowe has won two tournaments already beating major conference teams in both events so making it to the finals to play Georgetown seems highly possible. That would give the Pack at least four games against marquee opponents in Georgetown, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Syracuse with three of the those games not played in the confines of the RBC Center.
When is the last time NC State played four programs of that caliber in the regular season?