Chambers Excited About Wolfpack's Non-Conference Schedule

Assistant coach Brandon Chambers wears a lot of hats when it comes to duties on NC State’s coaching staff, and one of them is crafting NC State's non-conference schedule.

“We're about 95 percent done,” Chambers recently informed Inside Pack Sports.  “We have one more game that we have to contract for that's going to be the last non-conference, and to be honest, when I took the job from McNeese, going from a low major where no one wanted to play you, I mean literally no one wanted to play you... people wouldn't call back, text back. I was clawing, scratching, as well as the rest of the staff trying to get any sort of game that we could get to now at NC State where you're able to kind of shift the schedule to, how you want it and the metrics that you want to look for.”

Chambers admitted that while there are advantages, building the schedule isn’t easy.

“It's been a lot of fun, but it's also been challenging in the sense of... I would say I know more about scheduling than most, but I'm not an expert. I don't really think there's any expert by any means, but I'll geek out for a second. I think the biggest thing in scheduling is you schedule to your team,” he said.  “So if you're like a Duke last year and you have Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel and you feel really good about your team and you can play for a No. 1 overall seed in your entire bracket and control your destiny and play regionally where you want to play, I think you absolutely schedule to your team.

“If you're a team that is fighting to be a four or five seed and you want to move up a line or, you know, a team that's a seven or eight move up line ,or if you're a team that's kind of on that bubble to get in the tournament, you absolutely schedule to that team. You don't want to schedule a schedule that's too hard where you can't win any of those Q1, Q2 games, or if you take a tough Q3 or Q4 loss that could potentially hurt you or vice versa if you're a team that is maybe not projected to be in the tournament and then how do you put yourself in the best position to have a chance at the end of the year after conference play.”

“So for us, as we're developing this roster, coaches always wanted to play a hyper-competitive schedule, and there was no doubt that we were going to put together a roster that was hyper-competitive, that could compete nationally, with the top 25 best programs,” he added.  “But in the same sense, you also don't want to bite off more than you can chew before you have [a full roster], and so it's been a process of trying to figure out who's going to be on the roster, what the roster's going to look like.”

Another adjustment has been the ACC going from 20 conference games to 18.

“That's two more extra games that you can get and more flexibility to play with,” Chambers said.  “Also getting an understanding of the ACC schedule, who are you just going to play at home, who are you going to play both home and away, what are going to be your road games, and then how that shapes into Q1, Q2 games.

“So for us, we thought that the ACC schedule came out and it was favorable for us as far as what teams we play at home, what teams we play on the road, and which ones we play home and away.”

The unknown was who the Pack would draw from the SEC in the ACC/SEC Challenge.  Once Auburn was announced, Chambers was excited.

“I love it,” he said of the matchup.  “I played there before. It was great. It's a really hard place to play. They're 61-5 in the last four years playing there, so it's going to be a great game. Obviously their success last year, they've had a tremendous team, tremendous program in the SEC. Bruce Pearl does a tremendous job.

“If you want to compete at the national level, I think Coach Wade will be the first to say it, but you don't get better or you don't test yourself when you're playing bad teams or bad programs. It gives you false confidence or false hope or false belief.”

“When we pulled the Auburn game, we were all excited about it,” he added.  “You get a chance to go against one of the best programs in the country. It's going to be a fight. We're going to give it everything we've got and see if we can come out of there with a win. But regardless, it's a great barometer for us as a program to test ourselves and see where we're at and see not only where we're at, but also it gets us ready for ACC play, to have a team like that on the road.”

Auburn spent much of last season as the No. 1 team in the country and it is expected the Tigers will be strong again this year.  Was this matchup an example of the league showing NC State a lot of respect?

“When I first got here, I didn't actually know the process of how they do the ACC-SEC Challenge,” Chambers said.  “I was told that initially it was done by standings, and then I did a little research and saw that it was by fan engagement. You go by that, there was probably four or five teams that we could have ended up playing.

“They have a great program. They do a tremendous job. Obviously, us coming to NC State and establishing ourselves in the ACC, we want to be considered one of the best teams in the country, one of the best teams in the ACC. This gives us an opportunity to test ourselves against one of the best teams in the country and one of the best teams in the SEC. It's going to be a lot of fun.”

“We're going to give it everything we've got and let the chips fall where they may,” he added.  “Coach will be the first one to tell you, we take it one game at a time. That game is great, but we have six or seven games before that that we're going to have to compete and play at a high level and test ourselves before we get to that game. It's going to be a building process. We take it game by game and practice by practice. Right now, the only thing that we're focused on is having a great practice later today.”

What else will be a focus?  In-state competition.

“I think this is big for Coach Wade,” Chambers said of playing in-state opponents.  “I also think it's big for the state of North Carolina that it never made sense to us –  when we were at LSU or McNeese or anywhere, really, in years past – why you wouldn't play teams in your state. I think that number one, fan involvement and engagement is huge. We're fortunate that we know a lot of coaches, whether it be from the VCU coaching tree, that are at schools in our region, in our state.

“So Coach has made it a point to make sure that we highlight those schools. So, we will play a fair number of teams in our state, which I think is great for NC State. It's great for NC State households that may have a kid that went to NC State and a kid that went to another school in the state. But I also think it's great for their fanbase as well to have a chance to play a program in their state that they may not be able to play against.”