NC State baseball is on NCAA Tournament bubble

When NC State baseball was swept by North Carolina, that dealt a blow to the Wolfpack’s at-large chances for the NCAA Tournament. However, a weekend sweep of Pittsburgh by NC State has given the Pack a spark entering this week’s ACC Tournament, where an opportunity awaits head coach Elliott Avent’s squad.

As of May 22, D1Baseball.com has NC State as the last team in the field. Last week, Baseball America had the Pack as one of the first four out.

TheWolfpacker.com took a listing of the last four teams in and first four teams out from the most updated projected fields by D1Baseball.com and Baseball America, the latter of which included an additional next four out. The chart below includes the teams’ respective RPI, strength of schedule (SOS), non-conference SOS (NSOS) and records against RPI teams 1-25, 26-50, 51-100, 101-200 and 200 and over.

The teams are listed in order of RPI ranking.

TeamRPISOSNSOS1-2526-5051-100101-200200+NC State26251315-124-58-13-014-0Oklahoma3616408-84-36-610-72-0TCU3723287-62-67-716-31-0Georgia3837811-150-38-510-30-0Missouri42271785-185-25-16-19-1UC Irvine4577720-07-111-1111-46-1Notre Dame46402496-64-56-89-25-1Arizona State4937710-55-1213-47-16-0Southern Cal50421912-3-15-911-711-14-2Georgia Tech53241057-105-106-35-27-0Texas State54701432-34-59-98-212-2UNC Wilmington5643102-54-56-313-76-1Xavier5787322-51-86-013-812-1Elon5959393-53-15-413-78-3Rutgers61102731-61-26-315-610-4Texas-San Antonio641301350-31-06-326-105-1Cal State Fullerton6645193-37-66-84-49-0

NC State baseball has some areas that stand out in the Pack’s favor.

The Wolfpack is the best from the RPI standpoint. A year ago, when NC State was surprisingly left out of the field, the Pack was No. 35 in RPI. NC State was the highest-rated RPI team to miss the field then.

Also of note is that NC State has one of the better overall strength of schedule of the 17 teams listed, checking in at fifth best.

However, this week represent a significant opportunity for NC State baseball. The Pack will play RPI No. 19 Duke and No. 19 Miami. Neither of those teams are likely to fall below the top 25 regardless of what happens in the ACC Tournament.

The biggest issue that the NC State baseball faces at the moment is the lack of success against top teams. The Wolfpack is 5-12 against top 25 rated opponents, and when extended to top 50, the record is 9-17. That is a 34.6 percent winning percentage vs. the top 50 in the RPI.

There are others with notably poor W-L records in that area: Arizona State is 5-17, or 22.7 percent; Rutgers is 2-8, or 20.0 percent; Xavier is 3-13, or 18.8 percent; and Missouri is 10-20, or 33.3 percent.

However, NC State baseball has one of the poorer winning percentages against top teams when compared to fellow bubble teams. Beating both Duke and Miami would improve that, but there’s also a chance that other teams get significant wins as well in their respective conference tournaments.

How much it matters is debatable, but NC State was one of the best teams at beating opponents it was supposed to win against, which in a fickle sport like baseball is not an easy accomplishment. The Pack went 25-1 against teams ranked 50 or below in the RPI. Every other team compared to NC State has at least three losses to such rated squads, and all but one of the other 16 bubble teams have five or more defeats.

The post NC State baseball is on NCAA Tournament bubble appeared first on On3.