NC State will play Xavier in the “First Four” in Dayton on Tuesday night at 9:10pm.
With a win, State travels to Orlando to play St. Louis on Thursday.
Ultimately, things shook out just like we said yesterday when we said that NC State would be either the last team in the field or the last team out.
Last Four In: N.C. State, Xavier, Iowa and Tennessee
— SI College Hoops (@si_ncaabb) March 16, 2014
We also told you this morning that this analysis was the most appropriate and accurate of all of the bubble analysis out there. BOOM! I hope you listened to us, we would have saved you an awful lot of heartburn (and time) following the morons who don’t know how to add and subtract. You are welcome. 🙂
For fun, allow me to highlight that NC State is in the same bracket with Herb Sendek’s Arizona State Sun Devils…who, for even MORE FUN, is playing RICK BARNES’s Texas Longhorns. WOW!! Someone get me out of 2005!!
In all of this, I can’t help but LOVE the egg on the face of some of the expert ‘Bracketologists’, most notably Joe Lunardi of ESPN. Lunardi was so dismissive about NC State that he not only refused to acknowledge State as a ‘First Four Out’; he moved the Pack completely out of consideration and added salt into his own wound by keeping FSU as one of the first teams to miss the Tourney. That is the same FSU that NC State defeated head to head on our way to finishing ahead of in the ACC as we’ve been on fire the last three weeks. Sorry, Joe
Somewhere @ESPNLunardi weeps. Made to look the fool by @Mark_Gottfried & @PackMensBball
— statefansnation (@statefansnation) March 16, 2014
But, of all of the douchebags that live ‘out there’ in pundit-land, nobody has as much egg on their face as ESPN’s Jeff Goodman who was adamant all weekend that NC State would have to win the ACC Tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament. Not only was Goodman wrong about that proclamation, he missed it by a full two rounds as State needed two LESS wins than he projected.
Maybe TJ Warren can end up playing in NCAA tourney after all. Two more to go for NC State after upset over Syracuse. Nice win for Pack.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) March 15, 2014
Earlier today Goodman again proclaimed that the Pack wouldn’t make the tournament.
Nope. @bcgolfer3: @GoodmanESPN Do you think NC State will make the Tourny?
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) March 16, 2014
His reaction when NC State was selected?
N.C. State? SERIOUSLY?
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) March 16, 2014
The take-away from all this should be obvious — keep listening to us.
