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Through two days of pool play at the ACC tournament, one spot in the semifinals has been determined: Boston College, the No. 12 seed and last team in the field, is through to the semis on Friday. The winner of NC State-Wake Forest is also through.
The other two slots will be determined by the winners between UNC-Miami and Georgia Tech-Duke on Friday. NC State would get the winner of Tech-Duke. The other games remaining on the pool play schedule are irrelevant, save what they might mean for the NCAA tournament chances of the bubble squads involved.
The top seed of each pool automatically wins a three-way tie between 1-1 teams in this garbage-ass format. Hence, if State beats Wake, it will be 1-0 and Wake will be 1-1, and if State then loses on Friday to FSU, which already lost to Wake, then everybody’s 1-1, and State advances. So Thursday night is all that matters.
When it comes to solidifying a hosting spot in the NCAAs, though, it wouldn’t hurt for NC State to win both. And both Wake and Florida State are clawing for NCAA tournament at-large bids. The drama could be better, mind you, but it’s there.