NC State a No. 5 seed in way-too-early bracketology

Sure, the first day of the 2019 college basketball offseason might feel too soon to guess at what’s going to happen in 2020, but son if you aren’t in the computer lab getting plots up already then you’re being out-grinded by somebody else in the bracketology world.

Joe Lunardi obliged us with his early prediction at next year’s NCAA tournament field and he is surprisingly optimistic about NC State, which he has as a No. 5 seed in the East. State hasn’t been seeded anywhere near that high since it was a 3-seed in the 2004 field. Don’t remember what happened in the tourney that year, though. Probably something good.

If the Wolfpack is going to meet this prediction then it will at minimum need Markell Johnson back, though we probably won’t know his decision until the late-May deadline to withdraw from the NBA Draft.

And a lot is certain to change seeing as we’re only at the beginning of the graduate transfer window. If NC State adds a couple of impact players, maybe Lunardi will prove more prescient than I think. Or this could be a repeat of the time he projected NC State to earn a 3-seed in Sidney Lowe’s second year. Never know!