Before last week there was little hope NC State men’s basketball could make the NCAA Tournament through an at-large bid. The Wolfpack went 0-4 against power conference opponents outside of the ACC, failing to add any “quality wins” to its tournament resume. But some still saw a path that if NC State stacked up some road wins and pulled off some upsets, it could make the tournament without having to win the league title.

But now after losing at Virginia and Wake Forest, the only path back to “The Big Dance” has to come from winning the conference. Now that sounds a little dramatic given the Pack is only three games into conference play, but when you look at the Wolfpack’s schedule, there aren’t many games it could win that would boost its resume.

There are three Quad 1 games on NC State’s schedule — at Duke, at UNC-Chapel Hill and versus Pittsburgh — and just two other Quad 2 games on the road. The Pack has four Quad 2 games at home but winning those doesn’t really move the needle, given you’re supposed to win at home. Meanwhile, NC State has eight Quad 3 games or worse remaining, which are contests it can’t lose.

NC State’s current situation reflects more poorly on the ACC than the Wolfpack itself. The conference is only projected to have five teams in the NCAA Tournament — two are slated to be the last four in — despite adding three schools this year. It has gone 27-79 against teams in the Top 100 in BartTorvik.com’s rankings and went 2-14 in the ACC/SEC challenge.

That’s what made NC State’s losses to Virginia and Wake Forest so costly. It was two Quad 2 road games that only could’ve helped the Wolfpack’s resume. But now because of how weak the ACC is there just aren’t enough games left for the Pack to prove itself. There are more games NC State can’t afford to lose than there are big wins.

So now, NC State is playing for the highest seed possible in the ACC Tournament because it probably doesn’t want to be in a situation where it has to win five games in five days again. But before the Wolfpack even thinks about the conference tournament, it has to find an identity on the court or it could be a team that misses out on the league tournament altogether.

At the beginning of the season, it seemed like NC State would be known as a defensive team. The Wolfpack held Purdue, BYU and Texas under their points per game average and field goal percentage average. While NC State lost all three, it seemed like it found its identity on defense and just needed a little bit more offense to win games.

But during this stretch where the Wolfpack has lost three of four, it has allowed its opponent to shoot over 50% from the field in those three defeats. Not to mention, Wake Forest and Virginia are the two worst-scoring offenses in the ACC.

To make matters worse, NC State averaged just 62 points per game and 40.4% shooting in the three losses, both well below its season averages.

“We just got to be better on defense and just executing the offense as well,” said senior guard Dontrez Styles. “It’s still early. We’re going to be fine.”

Styles is right that they have to play better offense and defense, but is it early? Will they be fine?

Before last week it seemed like NC State understood how it had to play to win. Play physical defense. That hasn’t happened as of late. Limit turnovers and force mistakes. It has turned the ball over 24 times and created 18 turnovers in the last three games after leading the ACC in turnover margin entering the week, and the offense still has left much to be desired.

“What’s happening is we’re finding different ways to lose games,” said head coach Kevin Keatts.

Well, the Wolfpack needs to start finding different ways to win games or it will find itself having to pull off the same miracle as last season or even worse, sitting at home watching the ACC Tournament with its fate already sealed.