The stress of waiting for its name to be called in the last few minutes of Selection Sunday was non-existent Sunday night, as the N.C. State Men’s Basketball team was announced rather early as a No. 8 seed in the East Region of the NCAA Tournament.
After the disappointing defeat on Saturday against Miami in the ACC tournament semifinal, N.C. State has another fresh start to live up to its pre-season expectations.
As the No. 8 seed in the East Region, N.C. State will go head-to-head with the No. 9-seeded Temple University Owls.
Temple has had a pretty strong schedule this season. As far as conferences, Atlantic 10 has some tough basketball programs to contend with. The Owls went 11-5 in their conference and 23-9 overall.
Some key wins for the Owls were against Villanova, Syracuse and Virginia Commonwealth. They also dropped some close calls with Kansas and Butler. Temple went on a hot streak in the tail end of their season and won seven-straight games. Temple went into the Atlantic 10 tournament as a number four seed and lost in the quarterfinal round to the Minutemen of Massachusetts, 79-74.
Wolfpack head coach Mark Gottfried spoke highly of the Pack’s opponent from the Atlantic 10 conference.
“They are very well coached, beating Syracuse and Villanova this year, they play in a tremendous league with Butler, St. Louis and VCU,” Gottfried said. “I think they have an elite player, elite level, high level guy in Khalif Wyatt … a team that is proven and has done well all year long.”
Senior Khalif Wyatt was the Owls’ best weapon this season. He shot 43.1 percent from the field and scored 635 total points for the Owls this season. He also contributed 53 steals and 130 assists. He also averaged 33.1 minutes per game this season.
If you can remember the Herb Sendek era, than you may be able to look back at the 2002-03 season. This was N.C. State’s last meeting with the Temple Owls, and it resulted in a loss 54-76. N.C. State posted an 18-13 record and made it to the first round in the NCAA tournament that season. All together, N.C. State has met with Temple University a total of seven times and is 6-1 against the Owls.
Senior forward Richard Howell said he is anxious to prepare for the matchup against the Owls.
“We just got to do our homework, watch film,” Howell said. “That’s what I like about the tournament, every team is good and you can’t prepare for every team the same way.”
Gottfried said the team is “excited about the opportunity to play in the greatest show on earth.”
The Wolfpack has five days to prepare for the Owls, which will be played Friday, Mar. 22 in Dayton, Oh. Game time is yet to be determined. A second round birth could mean a meeting with number one seed Indiana.
“We have to win this game to get to them, hopefully we can take care of business so that opportunity will be there,” senior forward Scott Wood said.
