Backing The Pack
Cheering for anyone else is for quitters.
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CJ Bailey fourth in ACC pre-season Player of the Year voting
The ACC revealed the pre-season all-conference team on Wednesday, and NC State did not have anybody selected. Which isn’t exactly surprising—I’m not sure who outside of CJ Bailey would have a credible argument at this point. There are guys with potential, of course—Harvey Dyson could have himself a year, for one—but the guesswork is a […]
NC State picked to finish seventh in ACC
NC State has been picked to finish seventh in the ACC this season, while Miami is, not surprisingly, the runaway favorite. The Wolfpack didn’t receive any first-place votes, and six schools not named Miami received at least one first-place vote, though the Hurricanes earned the vast majority of them. Someone picked Stanford to win the […]
Roster Building: Backup Point Guard
Basketball Calendar (Under 100 days to game #1!) Basket Under Review’s Matthew Winick does a very interesting (and huge) annual analysis of every transfer player and I pull from that for this article. Take what he says for what it’s worth, here is a sample of his work before last season. NC State’s Darrion Williams […]
ACC hoops roster spending lags behind other power conferences
The Athletic polled a bunch of power-conference coaches recently about NIL spending, asking them to estimate the average payroll for the teams within their respective leagues. The results show a pretty staggering increase from last season—SEC spending just about doubled, to about $18 million on average. While the power-five conferences were all pretty similar last […]
Looking at NC State’s conference schedule based on SP+ projections
The preseason ACC SP+ projections do not see a whole lot of difference between the middle and the back end of the league, which is probably not going to be borne out by the season, but is interesting nonetheless. While there are only three teams in the top 25, there are none outside of the […]
Murphy Center gets a cafeteria renovation
You can’t build a proper 21st century college football program without a dining facility that tailors to players’ individual recovery and performance needs in real time, that’s what I always say. The Murphy Center has a new cafeteria that does exactly that—whatever that means, exactly, I do not know. My secret to building a good […]
Coach Gainey’s Summer Press Conference
Now that summer camp sessions are over in June, and the July recruiting visits are winding down, the coaching staff is able to provide us some information about summer workouts. Highlights Front Court – Feeling much better after the two late additions. Both bring something different, Hall with the athleticism and Jurkovic brings that veteran […]
Halting conference realignment the latest aim of the ‘Protect College Sports Act’
Certain members of Congress and various college administrators continue to work on a piece of legislation that would cover a wide variety of issues in college sports—it would be bad for the players if it were to pass, naturally—and that includes a possible cap on league expansion. It would also make it a lot more […]
Pack9 continues 2027 roster build with more transfers
After taking a sizeable hit by losing seven players to the MLB Draft and another (JR RHP Heath Andrews) to an undrafted free agent deal after the draft, NC State had an open spot on their 34-man limit for the 2027 roster. They filled that spot… with three players. Hey, spring roster limits sound like […]
Roster Building: A Closer Look at the Front Court
Comparing the Five Big Men Here’s what’s wrong with trying to compare them, in addition to the fact that none of them played; a) in a P4 conference last season, b) with these teammates, or c), in Coach Gainey’s system: We don’t have the necessary baseline to accurately compare one to another. But we can […]
The ACC has a new championship game tiebreaker
Last year’s ACC title game featured Virginia and Duke, neither of which played Miami, which barfed all over itself twice during the regular season like the badly-coached monstrosity that it always is. Nevertheless, the ACC is feeling the reverberations from last fall. The ACC’s updated conference title tiebreakers are as follows: The No. 1 tiebreaker […]
Recapping NC State’s 2026 ACC Kickoff
Dave Doeren’s opening statement at ACC Kickoff was a Dabo-esque six minutes in duration, but he did warn everyone. You guys are going to be really sad that you give me a microphone (smiling). Okay, well let’s just see how long it takes for that to— Four score and 14 years ago I got hired […]
ACC Kickoff gets underway Wednesday
We’re hitting the turning point in the offseason, trudging as we are through the worst sports week of the year, as exemplified by the existence and broadcast of the ESPYs. The ACC’s football media days begin in Charlotte this morning, which will at least give us a few things to talk about. Dave Doeren and […]
Seven NC State players taken in MLB Draft, led by Ty Head
NC State had seven players taken during the MLB Draft over the weekend, with most of them scattered to the winds of the National League. Not surprisingly, it was Ty Head who hopped off the board first, going to the Orioles with the No. 46 overall pick. The slot value of that selection is north […]
Roster Building: Bench Potential – RJ Keene
Basketball news & notes: Rumor central – The Pack may open the season against some Fighting Camels Snelly is back! – Jordan Snell hired on Wolfpack staff as grad assistant NCAA: Wichita has been selected as the second site (along with Dayton) for the opening round of the expanded 76 team NCAA tournament. Each city […]
NC State 2026 MLB Draft Primer
The 2026 MLB Draft kicks off this weekend, with NBC/Peacock covering the first 10 picks on Saturday starting at 1:00pm, and then coverage switching over the wide assortment of MLB platforms for the remainder of Saturday (starting at 2:30pm) through Sunday (11:30am-7:30pm). NC State has had a player drafted – multiple actually – in each […]
NC State’s football roster updated to reflect new 5-in-5 rule
In June the NCAA approved its new age-based eligibility model, which discards redshirts entirely and gives athletes the ability to play five full seasons in college, provided they meet the new standard. The Division I Cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved a sweeping overhaul of eligibility rules for student-athletes, permitting Division I student-athletes up to five […]
Big 12 agrees to shove Monster Energy logo in everybody’s face
The Big 12 announced an agreement this week that, in a sane world, would be so roundly dismissed as embarrassing that the league would have to walk it back. But this is college sports in the we-need-every-cent-possible era, and so we have “Monster Energy Big 12 Football” and “Monster Energy Big 12 Basketball.” Big 12 […]
NC State finishes in Directors’ Cup top 25 for sixth year in a row
The final Directors’ Cup standings were released with the conclusion of the college baseball season (thanks again, by the way, Oklahoma!), and NC State landed at No. 22, marking its sixth consecutive finish in the top 25. To get the final numbers, the Directors’ Cup counts men’s and women’s hoops, baseball, women’s soccer, and women’s […]
Roster Building: Bench Potential – Darius Adams
BASKETBALL CALENDAR IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Here’s some fun snippets from the interview with Patrick Stacy to help get us through basketball’s summer doldrums Darius Adams One of the most interesting additions to the team is combo guard Darius Adams. He was a highly sought-after, McDonald’s All-American guard coming out of high school that […]
Happy Fourth of July
I just discovered this image through the Getty search function, because I was on a different joke tangent about Tom O’Brien, but all of these results are god’s plan, as Russell Wilson will tell you. So, anyway, this photo is my gift to you. Have a great weekend, try not to melt to death, make […]
Baseball transfer alliteration edition: Connor Chicoli, Maddox Monsour pick Pack
NC State landed a pair of transfers over the last week in RHP Connor Chicoli and OF Maddox Monsour. The transfer portal also tooketh as rFR RHP Kaden Morris entered. Morris did not appear in a game in his two seasons with the Wolfpack. A Raleigh native who attended Garner HS and Pro5 Academy, Chicoli […]
NC State’s ACC Network takeover starts Thursday
NC State’s 24 hours of takeover time on the ACC Network begins tonight, or rather Thursday morning, depending on your perspective. As college sports have been degraded over the years by the worst people you can imagine, I have more frequently come back to the question of why I care about them, especially now. The […]
Clemson spending upwards of $30 million on its football roster
The amount of money it takes to build an elite college football roster is anyone’s guess, though we can safely say that NC State doesn’t have that kind of money on hand. And almost certainly never will, unless a billionaire benefactor materializes from thin air. What are the major football powers spending these days? Clemson […]
Program Building: Eligibility = Continuity
As everyone expected, the NCAA has implemented the age-based eligibility rules. And, as expected, the NCAA is immediately getting hit with lawsuits challenging the rule. Let’s look at the new rule, and how it affects the Wolfpack men’s basketball team. “Under the new Division I age-based eligibility rule, student-athletes who meet all eligibility requirements and […]
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