Really bummed about the analysis of the men's basketball bubble to generate enthusiasm over analyzing some of the other sports. (although looking back at this post, I ramble a lot)

What I will say is that during our nice run in Charleston where we won 5 of 6, the problem was that we weren't generating any runs. In fact, our best run production was in the 8th inning of a game that we should have finished off in the 7th, but we blew the lead. That worried me going into conference play and going against a top 25 team in Virginia Tech. We were very competitive in games 1 and 3, but couldn't get the big hit.

Going into this week, we have Winthrop at home, and then travel to Florida State to play three against the defending national champions. Even just one win down there would be huge to get some momentum going. Starting 0-6 in the conference is a tough hole to dig out of.

Looking at the big picture, we are 16-11, 0-3 in the ACC with two rain-outs, one that has been replaced. The RPI is out and we sit at #82. Conference opponents ahead of us are: #1 Florida State, #21 Notre Dame, #27 North Carolina, #28 Virginia Tech, #49 Georgia Tech, #55 Louisville, and #80 Syracuse.

We have wins over #8 Arizona, #38 South Florida, with losses to #9 Florida, #24 Michigan, #45 Wisconsin (who is 21-3, but 45, wow) Meanwhile Nebraska who opened at 8-2 (including 2 against us, has lost 11 of 13 and fallen to #122)

Realistically, an NCAA appearance this year was a long shot, and the numbers still bear that out. If I were to take a guess, if we could run the table in the non-conference (7 games), and finish 11-13 in the ACC. That puts us at 34-24. That probably puts us in the ballpark, maybe push that to 12-12 in the ACC and 35-23 overall. There are no quads in softball that I know of, so top 50 win is a top 50 win, and we have 2 of them. We will get shots at FSU, ND, and Louisville in conference. Plus UNCG and Elon are top 100. That said, this is a building year, so I think I put this NCAA talk out there just for a reference point.


So the next step is to make the ACC tournament (top 10 of 12 teams). BC is 7-14 (0-3 ACC). We play 3 at their place. Pitt is 4-21 (1-5 ACC) We don't play them. Syracuse is 9-16 (1-2 ACC) We get them at home. Duke is 12-15 (3-3 ACC) We play them at their place. Virginia is 4-2, but traditionally struggles, and we have 3 with them at home. Guessing I'd say VT, UNC, FSU, Lou, GT, and ND are claiming 6 spots. And the remaining 6 will battle it out for the bottom 4. We get to play 4 of those 5 bottom half teams, and play 4 of the top half teams. That seems pretty reasonable.

NCSU: (4 top, 4 bottom)
UVA: (5 top, 3 bottom) (already played and swept Pitt)
Duke: (4 top, 4 bottom)
Syr: (4 top, 4 bottom)
BC: (5 top, 3 bottom)
Pitt: (4 top, 4 bottom) (already played Duke and UVA and sits at 1-5)

I think Pitt, UVA, and BC are the teams that we have the best chance of passing. So the BC and UVA series for us will be huge. Pitt seems really bad, so we just need them to keep losing.

UVA is 4-2, but could get swept by UNC, FSU, ND, and VT, putting them at 4-14 with series left against NCSU and Duke. UVA plays Duke this weekend. If Duke can take 2 of 3, we could be looking at UVA at 5-16 going into a three game set with us in their last conference series of the weekend (it would be our next to last). If we win that series 2-1, then they finish 6-18, and we have the tiebreaker. So I look at that as best case scenario we need at least 6 wins to make the ACC tournament. (Duke already has 3 wins and plays UVA this weekend. Syracuse only has one, but they are generally on the better side of this bottom group)

So if we look at us, and we concede FSU, Louisville, and Notre Dame (which, anything can happen, we could beat them, but just saying)

That means we need to go 6-6 against at BC, Syr, at Duke, and UVA. That should be doable. Win your home series, and take at least one on the road. That's 6-6.

So that's just kind of a long term look at ACC prospects. I mean, I hope we win all 4 of those series (that's 8 wins), and take a game from Louisville and Notre Dame. That's 10 wins and right in the middle of the pack. But it's just one game at time at this point.

dj5377 said:

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Really bummed about the analysis of the men's basketball bubble to generate enthusiasm over analyzing some of the other sports. (although looking back at this post, I ramble a lot)

What I will say is that during our nice run in Charleston where we won 5 of 6, the problem was that we weren't generating any runs. In fact, our best run production was in the 8th inning of a game that we should have finished off in the 7th, but we blew the lead. That worried me going into conference play and going against a top 25 team in Virginia Tech. We were very competitive in games 1 and 3, but couldn't get the big hit.

Going into this week, we have Winthrop at home, and then travel to Florida State to play three against the defending national champions. Even just one win down there would be huge to get some momentum going. Starting 0-6 in the conference is a tough hole to dig out of.

Looking at the big picture, we are 16-11, 0-3 in the ACC with two rain-outs, one that has been replaced. The RPI is out and we sit at #82. Conference opponents ahead of us are: #1 Florida State, #21 Notre Dame, #27 North Carolina, #28 Virginia Tech, #49 Georgia Tech, #55 Louisville, and #80 Syracuse.

We have wins over #8 Arizona, #38 South Florida, with losses to #9 Florida, #24 Michigan, #45 Wisconsin (who is 21-3, but 45, wow) Meanwhile Nebraska who opened at 8-2 (including 2 against us, has lost 11 of 13 and fallen to #122)

Realistically, an NCAA appearance this year was a long shot, and the numbers still bear that out. If I were to take a guess, if we could run the table in the non-conference (7 games), and finish 11-13 in the ACC. That puts us at 34-24. That probably puts us in the ballpark, maybe push that to 12-12 in the ACC and 35-23 overall. There are no quads in softball that I know of, so top 50 win is a top 50 win, and we have 2 of them. We will get shots at FSU, ND, and Louisville in conference. Plus UNCG and Elon are top 100. That said, this is a building year, so I think I put this NCAA talk out there just for a reference point.


So the next step is to make the ACC tournament (top 10 of 12 teams). BC is 7-14 (0-3 ACC). We play 3 at their place. Pitt is 4-21 (1-5 ACC) We don't play them. Syracuse is 9-16 (1-2 ACC) We get them at home. Duke is 12-15 (3-3 ACC) We play them at their place. Virginia is 4-2, but traditionally struggles, and we have 3 with them at home. Guessing I'd say VT, UNC, FSU, Lou, GT, and ND are claiming 6 spots. And the remaining 6 will battle it out for the bottom 4. We get to play 4 of those 5 bottom half teams, and play 4 of the top half teams. That seems pretty reasonable.

NCSU: (4 top, 4 bottom)
UVA: (5 top, 3 bottom) (already played and swept Pitt)
Duke: (4 top, 4 bottom)
Syr: (4 top, 4 bottom)
BC: (5 top, 3 bottom)
Pitt: (4 top, 4 bottom) (already played Duke and UVA and sits at 1-5)

I think Pitt, UVA, and BC are the teams that we have the best chance of passing. So the BC and UVA series for us will be huge. Pitt seems really bad, so we just need them to keep losing.

UVA is 4-2, but could get swept by UNC, FSU, ND, and VT, putting them at 4-14 with series left against NCSU and Duke. UVA plays Duke this weekend. If Duke can take 2 of 3, we could be looking at UVA at 5-16 going into a two game set with us. If we win that series 2-1, then they finish 6-18, without the tiebreaker. So I look at that as best case scenario we need at least 6 wins to make the ACC tournament.

So if we look at us, and we concede FSU, Louisville, and Notre Dame (which, anything can happen, we could beat them, but just saying)

That means we need to go 6-6 against at BC, Syr, at Duke, and UVA. That should be doable. Win your home series, and take at least one on the road. That's 6-6.

So that's just kind of a long term look at ACC prospects. I mean, I hope we win all 4 of those series (that's 8 wins), and take a game from Louisville and Notre Dame. That's 10 wins and right in the middle of the pack. But it's just one game at time at this point.

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Wow. Great analysis! Thanks

I have been concerned about hitting too. OUr pitching has carried us (except for game 2 vs VT; not sure what happened there.)

Let me add one more piece that I was thinking of, especially since I'm normally the optimistic one. That long post analyzes where we are, and that is well off the pace for the NCAA and trending towards a bottom half of the ACC finish.

But there is so much season ahead of us. If we were to beat Winthrop, and then go down and take 2 or 3 against #1 RPI Florida State, we would immediately jump from off the radar to on the bubble (probably in) in one weekend. No other bubble team will most likely be able to tout a series win on the road at a top five team. And it would push our top 50 win total to 4 with many more chances to go. So we have a tremendous opportunity this weekend to change the direction of our season in a matter of about 44 hours. We just have to seize it.

The NC State softball team (16-14, 0-6 ACC) fell in its series finale with No. 3 Florida State (32-3, 5-1 ACC) on Sunday afternoon at JoAnne Graf Field in Tallahassee, Fla., 8-0 (6).

On Deck

The Pack returns home Wednesday for a midweek matchup with UNCW. First pitch is 6 p.m. at Dail Stadium and the contest will be broadcast on the ACC Network Extra

https://gopack.com/news/2019/3/24/softball-falls-in-series-finale-with-no-3-florida-state.aspx

Tough weekend for the Pack as they drop all three at Florida State. FSU is the defending champion, and #1 in the RPI, so it's not a surprise. The middle game was close all the way with the Pack in the lead 4-3 in the middle innings, but couldn't hold on. Interestingly enough, our RPI jumped from #82 to #62 even though we went 0-3 on the week. That is the benefit of playing the #1 team in the country on the road. It does mean that our NCAA chances, while on life support, still have a pulse. I'm not even going to address it this week though. If we beat UNCW, and then go to #120 BC and sweep them, then I promise to analyze it further. But for now, I'll just update the ACC race to the top 10 (and making the ACC tournament)

BC took 2 of 3 from Syracuse, which is probably a negative for us. Tough to get a read on which team is better.
Duke took 2 of 3 from Virginia. We probably wanted a Duke sweep, but 2 of 3 was the minimum that we needed.

I'll break it down in to top 6 and bottom 6, and trust me, Lou and ND belong in the top 6 despite technically being behind in the standings:

Top 6:
Virginia Tech 8-1
Florida State 5-1
UNC 6-3
GT 5-4
Louisville 3-3
Notre Dame 3-3

I'm conceding 6 of the 10 ACC tournament spots to that group.

Bottom 6:
Virginia 5-4
Duke 5-4
Syracuse 2-4
BC 2-4
Pitt 1-8
NCSU 0-6

4 of the final ACC tournament spots will come from this group.

Remaining schedule
UVA (FSU, at UNC, at VT, ND, at NCSU)
Duke (at GT, VT, at Syr, NCSU, at FSU)
Syr (ND, at NCSU, Duke, Pitt, at GT, FSU)
BC (NCSU, at ND, Lou, at FSU, VT, at Pitt)
Pitt (UNC, at GT, at Syr, ND, BC)
NCSU (at BC, Syr, at ND, at Duke, UVA, Lou)


Last week, you may recall that I predicted that it would take 6 wins to avoid the bottom two spots. Pitt seems to be really struggling this year, and they seem destined to be in the bottom two. The problem with them is that they play BC and Syracuse, which gives those teams a chance to pad their conference schedule, and we don't get to play them. Duke has a tough schedule, but with 5 wins already, they may be tough to catch. It's UVA at 5-4 that I still think can be caught, but that means they need to lose their next 12 in a row. Highly possible, but over the course of 12 games, will the better team win each time. Hopefully that's a yes.

Meanwhile our path to six means win one at BC and Duke, win 2 at home against Syracuse and UVA.

So at a bare minimum, we need to win at least one at BC. BC is 10-16 overall, 2-4 in the league. They haven't really done anything of note this year other than beat a bad Michigan State team twice, and take 2 of 3 from Syracuse. I really think this is a team that we can take the series from. If we do that, then they play 12 straight against the upper crust, and they could be looking at 3-18 going into that final weekend against Pitt. They are certainly a candidate for the bottom two, so that makes this series a big one. If we find a way to sweep, then our prospects definitely start to look bright, knowing that we have Syracuse at home the following week.

So this week is a real test to see where we are as program. And I actually have a good feeling that we are ready to make a statement.

The NC State softball team (17-14) snapped a six-game loss streak on Wednesday evening at Dail Stadium as it held off UNCW (20-14), 3-2.

How It Happened
-NC State opened the scoring with a run in the second inning. Skylar Johnston led off with a single through the left side, and after a pair of groundouts moved her to third she scored on a dropped third strike wild pitch.
-The Pack doubled its lead in the third when Morris's double to right center drove in Nordberg from first after she reached on a two-out single.
-UNCW struck in the fourth thanks to Janel Gamache's double to right center that plated pinch runner Hunter Bizzell from third. Dominique Travers led off with a walk and was replaced by Bizzell on the base path, and back-to-back wild pitches put her at third to start the threat.
-NC State responded in the bottom frame with Rizzi's solo shot to left field.
-The Seahawks tacked on its second run in the fifth. Pinch hitter Carson Shaner hit a one-out single to the shortstop and took second on Kali Jones's hit-by-pitch, and crossed home plate on Rachel Willis's RBI single to center field.

On Deck
The Pack travels to Boston College this weekend for its third ACC series of the year. The teams will play at 6 p.m. Friday, Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 12 p.m. at the Harrington Athletics Village. All three games will be broadcast on the ACC Network Extra.



https://gopack.com/news/2019/3/27/softball-holds-off-uncw-3-2.aspx

The BC series should be a good opportunity to pick up some wins this weekend

BRIGHTON, Mass. The NC State softball team (17-15, 0-7 ACC) dropped a heartbreaker on Friday evening against Boston College (11-17, 3-4 ACC) at Harrington Athletics Village. The Wolfpack held a two-run lead heading into the final half inning of the contest, but the Eagles plated three runs to take game one of the series with a 4-3 walk-off win

Took 2 out of 3. Heartbreaking loss in game 1 and really should have won that one. Glad we took advatage of poor pitching and errors from bc.

I said if we had a good week, I'd look at the NCAA chances, and we did have a good week, so I'm taking a look. A look at the ACC to come tomorrow. The raw number (RPI of 62) suggests that we knocking on the door of the bubble. At-large teams typically are RPI of 45 of better, with generally top 50 as a must get metric. On the surface, we are only 12 spots away from the top 50, but our resume still lacks in quality wins, and we only have 6 top 50 games left, and 5 in the 51-100 range. We would probably need 16-5 overall with 3-3 vs top 50, and 3-2 vs 51-100 and run the table 11-0 vs 100+. That's quite a tall task, but just a reference to where we are.

Resume (based on RPI)
vs 1-25 = 1-5
Wins = Arizona (6)
Losses = FSU (1), FSU (1), FSU (1), Florida (9), Michigan (22)

vs 26-50 = 1-5
Wins = South Florida (30)
Losses = Virginia Tech (28), Virginia Tech (28), Virginia Tech (28), Wisconsin (41), Wisconsin (41)

vs 51-100 = 0-0

vs 100+ = 17-5
sub groups
vs 101-150 = 8-3
Wins = Illinois State (110), BC(137), BC(137), Murray State (140), Murray State (140), Campbell (144), Campbell (144), UNCW (145)
Losses = Nebraska (108), Nebraska (108), BC (137)

vs 151-200 = 4-1
Wins = Kansas (161), Charleston (170), Charlotte (188), Marist (191)
Loss = Valparaiso (174)

vs 200+ = 5-1
Wins = Charleston So. (215), Charleston So. (215), UMBC (232), Youngstown State (240), Bryant (247)
Loss = Rhode Island (216)


Remaining:
Winthrop (152)
UNCG (65)
Syracuse (96)
Syracuse (96)
Syracuse (96)
East Carolina (121)
Notre Dame (29)
Notre Dame (29)
Notre Dame (29)
Elon (75)
Duke (102)
Duke (102)
Duke (102)
NC Central (273)
Campbell (144)
Virginia (123)
Virginia (123)
Virginia (123)
Louisville (44)
Louisville (44)
Louisville (44)
ACC Tournament TBA

So this week, we have Winthrop followed by 4 top 100 games. Since we only have 2 top 100 wins all year, this would be a big step to get UNCG on the road, and hopefully take the series against Syracuse. Gotta get at least go 4-1 to scratch our way closer to the bubble.

ACC update:

Great weekend for the Pack as they take 2 of 3 from Boston College, pulling to within one game in the standings of qualifying for the ACC tournament, and setting us up to have the tiebreaker over BC if it comes to that. We could have gotten the sweep, but we gave up a 2 run lead in the 7th during the Friday game. Overall though, a great performance on the road. From a standings perspective, unfortunately, Syracuse (who just last 2 of 3 to BC) turned around and took 2 of 3 from Notre Dame. (Notre Dame is #28 in the RPI, very unexpected). Also, Duke, who I had in the bottom six, swept Georgia Tech. The takeaway is that Duke has pushed themselves into the upper part of the conference. Syracuse is going to be harder to catch, but also, maybe Notre Dame is vulnerable. The reality is that we are only two games back of 5th place, so we need to just keep getting wins, and we may find ourselves right in the middle of the pack, instead of scrambling for 10th.

That said, here are the current standings:
FSU 8-1
VT 10-2
UNC 8-4
Duke 8-4
Lou 4-5
ND 4-5
Syr 4-5
UVA 5-7
GT 5-7
BC 3-6
NCSU 2-7
Pitt 2-10


Probably can concede at least the top 4 spots to the ACC tournament. Louisville and ND may be vulnerable. But most likely the last three spots will come down to Syr, UVA, BC, NCSU, and Pitt. Big weekend for the Pack hosting Syracuse. Another series win should propel us back into the top 10. I still think that we will need at least 6 ACC wins to make the ACC tournament, so we are a third of the way there.


Here is the remaining schedules for all teams, just as a reference:


Remaining schedule
FSU (at Lou, at UNC, BC, Duke, at Syr)
VT (at Duke, UVA, UNC, at BC, OFF)
UNC (UVA, FSU, at VT, at Lou, OFF)
Duke (VT, at Syr, NCSU, at FSU, OFF)
Lou (FSU, at BC, GT, UNC, at NCSU)
ND (BC, NCSU, at UVA, at Pitt, GT)
Syr (at NCSU, Duke, Pitt, at GT, FSU)
UVA (at UNC, at VT, ND, at NCSU, OFF)
GT (OFF, Pitt, at Lou, Syr, at ND)
BC (at ND, Lou, at FSU, VT, at Pitt)
NCSU (Syr, at ND, at Duke, UVA, Lou)
Pitt (OFF, at GT, at Syr, ND, BC)

good to win. I think our pitching has carried us this year.

Once we start hitting consistently, we will be pretty good.