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One more NC State basketball scheduling nugget this morning, courtesy CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein: St. Peter’s is a part of the Wolfpack’s non-conference home slate. The Peacocks finished last season at 14-18 overall and finished ninth in the MAAC with a 6-12 league record.
The rest of the non-conference schedule is likely nothing but buy games like this one, given that the Pack already has Auburn, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, and Penn State on the schedule. That’s plenty of heft right there.
Still, St. Peter’s does represent an improvement in the quality of the lower mid-majors on the schedule. Here’s a good note on that from @No23sports:
For you KenPom folks, St. Peter's finished #217.
— No. 23 Sports (@No23Sports) August 16, 2018
Of the non-conf teams NC State intentionally scheduled last year (so not including Battle 4 Atlantis, ACC/B1G Challenge), UNCG was the only team that finished higher in KenPom than #217. That's how bad last year's schedule was.
See, when you play a schedule that bad, there’s nowhere to go but up! Even with a bad team from the MAAC. RPI blessings for us all!
I’d imagine the full non-conference schedule is due to be officially announced pretty soon. The ACC released everybody’s schedules in the first week of September last year.