Why NC State’s coach believes the Pack is ‘on the bubble’ for NCAA Tournament

ESPN’s Bracketology listed N.C. State as a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Region and headed to Oklahoma City in the opening round. With another loss on its resume, Will Wade isn’t even convinced his team will make the tournament.

After the Pack’s 77-76 loss to Miami, a reporter asked Wade about the style of play.

When you have a game this close the entire time, it kind of mimics what you see in the NCAA Tournament. How can you use this?

“Shoot, we’re a long way from the NCAA Tournament,” Wade said. “This team lost to Georgia Tech. I mean damn, you’re skipping way ahead. Worried about the NCAA tournament. I just hope we can get to Dayton.”

N.C. State (18-8, 9-4 ACC) already dropped from No. 26 in the KenPom rankings to No. 30. It entered the game at No. 29 in the NET, likely to have a similar drop.

They’re certainly not out of the tournament picture, but Wade and his crew knew what was at stake. Miami (20-5, 9-3) was, in the same Bracketology update, a bubble team. It was a No. 10 seed in the South Region and one of the last four teams with a bye, skipping the First Four round in Dayton, Ohio.

The Hurricanes could see their stock rise in the next update after picking up their fourth Quad 1 win, while the Pack could see theirs fall.

“This doesn’t sit well with me,” Wade said, noting the collective effort was not acceptable. “I could see some of this coming, if you asked our guys, and they were honest, some of the guys who made some major mistakes for us down the stretch I called out in practice the last two days. I could see the slippage.”

He was nose to nose with one player Friday and knew a poor performance was likely on the horizon.

As Wade said on Monday, though, this only counts as one loss, not multiple, and opportunities still exist, both in his team’s control and outside it.

N.C. State has three Quad 1 games remaining: Duke, North Carolina and Virginia. It plays the Cavaliers on the road. Miami’s schedule also includes three Q1 contests. The Wolfpack has two lower Quad 2 games left on the regular-season schedule.

Wade’s squad needs to win both Q2 games — on the road at Notre Dame and at home against Stanford — and could desperately use one or two upsets in its heavyweight matchups.

A solid finish from Miami could bump this game up in the eyes of the selection committee in a month. But there are a lot of ifs, and, just like the loss to Georgia Tech — two blown leads — it’s going to stick with Wade for a long time.

“We have belief in each other, and it’s just a matter of sticking together,” Matt Able said. “Obviously, no one wants to lose, but we did, and we have to learn the lessons from this game and move on and just become better from it.”

To Wade, the real issue is that the Wolfpack doesn’t have a true identity and isn’t playing to the set standard. It’s one thing to play well and lose. It’s another to lack toughness and direction.

Miami has an identity and knows what it wants to accomplish, Wade said.

“They’re going to bludgeon you in the paint,” Wade said. “They’re going to be physical.”

His team, meanwhile, is a jump shooting team. But that’s about it. It does not have one or two main qualities it can really lean on. It doesn’t have the toughness to make up for its technical deficiencies, either.

Wade takes full responsibility for poor coaching in-game and for the way he’s handled the group. He called it soft.

“That’s an indictment on this guy right here,” Wade said, pointing to himself. “We have no identity outside of making jump shots. And that’s a bad, bad way to have to play.”

Admittedly, Wade tried to “ride the wave” when the team was winning. At one point, he said fans and the team were “intoxicated” by the wins but weren’t seeing things for what they were: escapes.

Wade said after SMU that the winning would come to an end if the team didn’t get its issues fixed. So far, he’s been correct.

On Saturday, he mentioned the 20 offensive rebounds allowed, free throw box-outs on both ends, points in the paint and rebounding. The response he wanted after the 41-point loss to Louisville? Not there. He still hopes the team can see the importance of discipline and attention to detail, but time is running out.

“We missed the front end of the 1-and-1. same situation we had at SMU, but we made a big defensive stop. That stuff always comes back to bite you,” Wade said. “We don’t have the discipline to understand that right now, and we’re not. That’s why we’re going to be on the bubble the rest of the year.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2026 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Why NC State’s coach believes the Pack is ‘on the bubble’ for NCAA Tournament."