pafan wrote:purple&orange wrote:If NC State can make the field with a terrible non-con with all games against anybody decent in an event while playing no true road games that you scheduled. (Wisconsin B1G/ACC Challenge, Penn State and Auburn in Atlantic City, and a stretch here but winless Vandy in Miami, FL)
NC State is an extreme case of a team taking advantage of the NET. Their RPI rank right now is #98, which would put them well beyond the bubble.
NC State played 6 games against the bottom 50 teams in KenPom. Let's suppose they swap Maryland-Eastern Shore with Indiana State and UNC Asheville with IUPUI. That raises their NCSOS rank to 48 spots to #305, one spot above Michigan, and also better than five ACC teams (ND, Wake, Va. Tech, BC, and Pitt)
I'm not sure, however, that making this swap helps NC State in any way. Their critics will still call their schedule weak, because the 8th place team in the MVC/7th place team in the Horizon is still pretty bad. Their fans still don't get to see any big name programs in Raleigh outside of the ACC. And presumably the costs to buy ISUb are higher than buying Maryland-Eastern Shore.
One thing about a swap like that: if you replace a few #325 teams with a few #225 teams....an average team is going to blow one of those games and lose. So NC State would have a more palatable SoS, but a bad Q4 loss on the books. Evens out.
