After earning an 11-seed as the No. 41 overall team in this year's NCAA Tournament, NC State arrived in Denver today to prepare for its matchup with sixth-seeded Creighton on Friday at 4 p.m.
What to expect? Bless your heart, you're adorable.
Look, the Pack could come out and out-athlete the Bluejays and then blitz third-seeded Baylor two days later to vault into the Sweet Sixteen. Or State could absolutely get pick-and-rolled to death by a more disciplined Creighton team and have its Big Dance appearance over in the blink of an eye.
Each scenario is entirely plausible. That's the Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic of the late-season Pack.
This was all on display last week, when you got the full NC State experience in the ACC Tournament: the Wolfpack looked like it could have run anyone out of the gym the way it roasted Virginia Tech by a pick-your-score 20 points, then looked like a squad that would have been pummeled by Louisville the very next day in getting crushed by Clemson by 26 points.
In my mind, the pertinent questions are:
- Will Terquavion Smith embrace maturity and find other ways to help the team that don't involve shooting the Pack out of contention?
- How will
competentnon-ACC refs officiate State big man D.J. Burns? Will they reward flopping and incessant hacking on one end while targeting him with touch fouls on the other? - Will Jack Clark and Ernest Ross be able to emerge in the frontcourt with Duson Mahorcic and Greg Gantt out?
We'll start to get some answers on Friday afternoon on whether we'll get the chuck-and-Hyde version of Smith or the Jekyll Joiner Wolfpack that can be a nightmare out for anyone in the South region. All possible outcomes are on the table.
Get your popcorn ready.
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