Inside the numbers behind NC State's incredible ACC Tournament title run
NC State completed its miracle run to the ACC Tournament crown on Saturday night, clinching a berth in the NCAA Tournament in the process.
The Wolfpack were nowhere near contention for an at-large bid when the week began. They went just 9-11 in ACC play during the regular season and lost 8 of their last 10 games to close out the regular season. Then, they won 5 games in 5 days to secure a spot in the Big Dance.
Head coach Kevin Keatts was rumored to be on the hot seat entering the ACC Tournament. Instead, NC State is now going to the Big Dance for the second straight season and Keatts earned an automatic 2-year extension for winning the conference title.
Here’s a breakdown of what changed for NC State during their magical week in Washington DC — and whether or not we can expect it to continue during the NCAA Tournament.
What changed?
NC State’s defense ramped up in a big way over the course of its 5-day run to the ACC Tournament title. The Wolfpack struggled on that end of the floor all season — entering Sunday, they rank 90th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.
But during the ACC Tournament, it held Syracuse, Duke and Virginia to under 1 point per possession in consecutive days. According to BartTorvik, when adjusting for opponent, the win over Duke was NC State’s best defensive performance in more than 2 months. Then in the title game against Carolina, the Tar Heels scored just 1.03 points per possession — well below their season average.
Over the final 4 games of NC State’s ACC Tournament run, opposing offenses shot just 28-of-97 (28.9%) from 3-point range. NC State also held opponents to a free throw rate below 22% in 4 of its 5 ACC Tournament contests. That’s a big improvement over NC State’s season-long free throw rate defense (31.7%), which ranks 157th nationally.
Offensively, NC State merely continued to uphold the level of efficiency that it has shown for the last several weeks. Since Feb. 9, BartTorvik’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric has NC State as the No. 20 offense in the country (compared to 47th for the full season).
NC State has scored at least 1.1 points per possession in 9 of its 13 games over that span. The Wolfpack’s recent offensive numbers look even better when adjusting for opponent. Per BartTorvik, NC State has an opponent-adjusted offensive rating of at least 115 in all 13 of those contests.
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Will it continue?
Whether or not NC State can keep up this momentum is the million dollar question going into March Madness.
Defensively, there are definitely reasons to be concerned. The Wolfpack seem to have benefitted from some shooting luck and definitely benefitted from a tight whistle during the ACC Tournament. If either of those factors change significantly during the NCAA Tournament, it would bring NC State’s defense back down to earth in a hurry.
It’s certainly worth noting that North Carolina, Virginia and Duke all under-performed their expected point totals vs. NC State based on ShotQuality data this week. However, on the other side of that coin, NC State’s defense ranks 24th nationally for the full season, according to ShotQuality. So perhaps some positive regression was always expected for NC State on that end of the floor and it came at just the right time for the Wolfpack to make their big run.
Offensively, there’s not much reason to believe the Wolfpack can’t continue to do what they’ve been doing. Keatts’ team has been incredibly consistent on the offensive side of the ball since late January.
It definitely helps that NC State can get big offensive outputs from a variety of places. Casey Morsell, DJ Horne, DJ Burns and Jayden Taylor all led the team in scoring in a ACC Tournament game last week. Morsell, Horne and Burns also all scored 20+ points in at least one game.
It hasn’t translated to wins until recently because of the defensive struggles, though. NC State’s offense is good, but it’s not good enough to overcome serious deficiencies on the other end if those show up during the NCAA Tournament. Whether or not NC State’s magical run will continue deep into March will likely depend on its defensive performance. That’s something to keep in mind as you fill out your bracket this March.
NC State will learn its first-round opponent when the bracket is revealed on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET.
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