North Carolina State University Athletics
#PackMadness Heads To Pittsburgh For NCAA Second Round
3/17/2015 12:00:00 AM
| #8 NC State (20-13) vs. #9 LSU (22-10) | ||
| Date | Thursday, March 19 | |
| Time | Approx 9:20 p.m. ET | |
| Location | Consol Energy Center - Pittsburgh, Pa. | |
| Tickets | Tickets | |
| Television | TBS (Brian Anderson, Steve Smith, Lewis Johnson) | |
| Radio | Wolfpack Sports Network (Gary Hahn, Tony Haynes) | |
| Game Notes | NC State | LSU | |
| Season Statistics | NC State | LSU | |
| Live Stats | GameTracker | |
| Social Media | @PackMensBball  | Facebook  |
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The Starting 5 - The Top 5 Storylines For This Game
1. #PACKMADNESS
Mark Gottfried has coached the Wolfpack into the bracket for a fourth consecutive year. NC State is the No. 8 seed in the East Region, playing in the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh against 9th-seeded LSU. NC State enters the Big Dance having won six of its last eight games, with four of those wins coming by double figures and a nine-point win at Louisville. NC State will be making its 26th NCAA Tournament appearance all-time and its second appearance as a No. 8 seed. The Pack was also a No. 8 in 2013, when it was edged by Temple in Dayton, Ohio.
2. `MARCH' GOTTFRIED
Under Mark Gottfried, NC State has thrived in college basketball's most exciting month. The Wolfpack is 17-9 in March under the fourth-year coach, including a 3-3 mark in the NCAA Tournament. Gottfried is one of three ACC coaches all-time (Roy Williams, Skip Prosser) to take each of his first four teams to the NCAA Tournament. NC State is also one of just 16 teams to appear in the Big Dance in each of the last four seasons. Gottfried, in his 18th seasons as a college head coach, is coaching in the tourney for an 11th time.
3. PREPARED FOR THE BIG DANCE
Few teams across the nation are as prepared as Mark Gottfried's Wolfpack. NC State played the nation's sixth-toughest schedule leading up to Selection Sunday, with its non-ACC schedule ranking 30th and its league schedule ranking 15th. The Pack played 17 games against teams in the top 70 of the RPI and ended up with seven wins against top 70 teams (Duke, Louisville, Boise State, Pitt, Louisiana Tech, Richmond and UNC-CH, Syracuse) while losing only three times to teams worse than 100 in the RPI.
4. NC STATE-LSU CONNECTIONS
There are two prominent connections between NC State and LSU. The first is the fact that Ralston Turner, NC State's second-leading scorer, played two seasons and started 58 games at LSU (2010-12) before transferring to NC State in 2012. The second is the long-time friendship between the two head coaches. LSU's Johnny Jones served as an assistant coach to Mark Gottfried for the 2000-01 season at Alabama for a team that won 25 games and made the NIT semifinal.
5. WE HAVE CAT DADDY
NC State will have starting point guard Cat Barber when it starts NCAA Tournament play. Barber was injured when he was blindsided by a screen in the second half of State's ACC tourney game vs. Duke. That happend one night after Barber dropped 34 points against Pittsburgh on March 11. The sophomore posted 9-for-13 shooting and was 4-for-5 from 3-point range. He was also 12-for-12 at the foul line. Despite the injury, Barber was voted second team All-ACC Tournament.
