Is Gainey's Year 1 Schedule an A+? NC State Basketball Full Non-Conference Breakdown | Tuffy Talk

Justin Gainey is building one of the most interesting non-conference schedules in NC State basketball history, and Layton and Ethan are grading every game we know so far.

They start with the marquee matchup. Tennessee at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on December 6. Twenty thousand seats. Rick Barnes on the other sideline. Gainey coaching against his mentor for the first time as a head coach. Ethan gives it an A-plus and makes the case that a win there would carry the same name recognition weight as beating Duke or UNC. Layton grades it slightly lower and explains why the mentor versus mentee spotlight, the unproven roster, and Tennessee's loaded portal additions all factor in.

Then the Baha Mar Bahamas Championship, Wisconsin and Seton Hall confirmed, fourth team still unknown. Ethan lands at a B-minus. Two potential Quad 1 opportunities but too many unknowns to go higher. The Maui comparison comes up, and Ethan makes a point about the travel distance that most fans haven't considered.

South Carolina at home for the ACC/SEC Challenge on December 1 gets a C. You should win it but you won't get much resume credit for it. Bart Torvik currently has South Carolina projected 89th in the country, and if that holds, this might not even be a Quad 2 game. Ethan doesn't love the quads system. He says so clearly.

Ole Miss in Biloxi, Mississippi gets a B. Layton grades it a B. Ethan goes A-minus on the full two-year series. Then Ethan drops a fact that reframes the whole conversation Biloxi is five hours from Oxford. This isn't really a neutral site game.

Then VCU on the road. Ethan's grade might be the most interesting take in the entire episode.

Then the full ACC road schedule. No home games against Duke or UNC. Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, UNC, Stanford, Virginia, and Virginia Tech all as road games. Is this the toughest away ACC schedule NC State has had in recent memory? And does a road-heavy schedule actually help the NCAA Tournament resume more than it hurts it?

Ethan closes with the overall non-conference grade, and his bold prediction on whether Gainey's Year 1 team is a tournament team. He doesn't think it's close.

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Transcript

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All fired up and live the Wolf Pack Nation, where a hell of a crowd from the first pitch to the final play to be tall. Let's roll today. Justin Gainey is building one of the most interesting nonconference schedules in NC state basketball history, and tonight we break down the games that we know so far. That being said, you got myself, Lane Smith, Ethan Berry here we are here from Tuffy Tucker. We are excited here tonight as we break it all down here. So, uh, Ethan, let's start off here first and foremost, man, are you ready for some basketball? It seems like just yesterday that we were talking about another head coach of his. So I know there's still his name around in the press and all that jazz here, but it's just a Gainey time, man. I'm I'm I'm stoked here for it, man. I'm. I'm ready to jump into it here and put the make the make the pass. Finally the past. Yeah. I'm ready to, uh, I I'm, I'm very bullish on Justin Gagne and I like what he's done so far. I like what he's done in the portal. I like what he's done with the schedule. Um, and so yeah, obviously we've we've spent a lot of time talking about the roster, but uh, I think, uh, ready to, to jump into the schedule and dive into it. Yeah, absolutely. So wanted to kind of start off with, in my opinion, I think is probably going to be the biggest game that I was circled so far here on the schedule. And that's the Tennessee game at Bridgestone in Nashville, Tennessee here. So, uh, want to kind of ask your thoughts here, and I'll ask you your thoughts to, to grade each of these games here. But what grade would you kind of give this game, Ethan, when it comes to, uh, resume tournament resume potential, but also to from a fan coolness perspective to as well, what grade would you give it? A plus a plus I don't think yeah, I, I don't think this one like, can you do better than this. I mean, maybe I mean, I guess the hard question would be, do you feel like it's winnable? I do, like, I feel like it's winnable. Um, especially early on in the season, like Tennessee added a ton through the portal, right. And it's a little bit of a different team than we've seen them have at Tennessee. Um, with the focus on offense and what they've landed on that side. But, I mean, Nashville is great, right? If you're if you're looking at that part of it as a fan, it's not too far. It's a quick flight. You can drive it if you want. Cool town. Um, you know, if people haven't been, it's no doubt it's going to be a quad one game, right? Like, you know, Tennessee is going to be a top 50 team in the net. So it's a it's a quad one game. It's a and it's not one of those quad ones where it's like well is it really a quad one. No no it's a quad one. Um, and I you know, I think it's if you're able to get it, you know, you like you it can really carry some weight. Like, I think it would be equivalent to like based off of name recognition, like a Duke or UNC type of win, where it's just like, oh, you just kind of assume those teams are good for me. Tennessee is is kind of in that category. Um, and so it'll be tough, no doubt. It'll be underdogs in that game, but not to the like. I think it'll be winnable. You know, and so uh, for me it it checks all those boxes. Right. Yeah. I mean, for me, I, I think that it's an A-plus opportunity for sure. But in terms of the win ability standpoint, there's a couple of things that, in my opinion, kind of counting. Down to an A for that perspective. I would do an A, a A or a minus just because. So here are the three three things I would say. First of all, I think that the the spotlight is going to be completely on game for that game. Yes, there's going to be the brick barns, you know, the, the, the mentor versus the mentee aspect. But you know Gainey you okay. First time being a full time head coach. You know going against his, his old, uh, you know, mentor. How is that going to go. Uh, number two as well. The fact that this is going to be a potential of if NC state was able to pull this off, this would be, in my opinion, one of the biggest non-conference wins NC state basketball has had in some years, in my opinion. Uh, just I mean, again, the road factor top 15 probably match up at that point. Uh, you know, first big game under coach Gainey, but also to as well in the fact that, like I said, there's there's just so much unproven from NC state perspective here. While with Tennessee, you're getting a lot of extremely high level proven production here. So but again, in terms of the resume, if you win this game, you're automatically jumping up a tier or two in these these resume conversations here. So but yeah no huge huge potential here. Um, so I also too wanted to, you know, in terms of resume builder here, I wanted to talk about the Bahamas, the Bahamas Championship. Uh, I know two of the other teams have been announced so far in Wisconsin, Seton Hall, to my knowledge, to this point, as of this recording, the four team has not been determined here. But, uh, what grade would you give this season in terms of, uh, resume potential and coolness factor. I thought there was a fourth team. What on that did they get? I saw that it hasn't been announced yet. That was just Seton Hall, Wisconsin in US. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Okay. Yeah. For some reason, I, I was thinking there was another team, but I don't see it, so, um. Yeah. I mean, so it's Wisconsin and Seton Hall. Mhm. You got it. Um, I think it's pretty solid for a, um, like a vacation holiday tournament. Like like I probably give it a B now of course you. It depends. You're only playing two games right. It's not a pool play. Um. And you don't know. Is it one of those where you play a winner, or do you know your opponent's going in? No. I think it's, uh, you play, you play the winner. You play winner. So you don't know. So you would. Depends on who you play in game one. So these are tough to you know evaluate. I think if you could get in. You know still not even knowing one of the teams Wisconsin like that would probably be my first pick out of season. I don't I don't really want to see Seton Hall again. I don't know if you feel differently, but and maybe that was just because they were ready to play in that game. And state just quite frankly, wasn't. And they just kind of punked state that day. Maybe that brought me the wrong way. Um, but I do think it's a solid field. I think it's better than the like to me, one of the biggest disappointments with that Maui tournament was the field wasn't as good as you would expect, right. For a for the Maui tournament, which is like the top tournament. It's not that anymore. You know, it's just not um, I think, you know, coaches have talked about that. It's the cost to get out there. Um, you know, is that really worth it? It's a cross country trip further than a cross country. Um, like, I don't know if you know this. The distance from Raleigh to LA is the same distance as LA to. I think it's like Honolulu, which they're not playing in Honolulu, but close enough. Right? Like one of the, one of the places in Hawaii. Like that's how far it is. Right. And it's just like, is that real? Like, is that worth it for teams? And so I think, you know, states sort of got stuck in it the first year. And I'm really curious, you know, what teams are going to be in that moving forward. Because I think it's going to be an adjustment. So yeah, I think from that perspective it's a better field, right. With Wisconsin, with Seton Hall. Whoever the third team ends up being like you would think it similar type team like a top a 50 to 75 team. Maybe you're able to get like a top 25 ish type team out there. But you know, I think both of those could potentially be quad one games. Neutral site. You're looking for a top 50. Yep. I think Wisconsin probably more likely than Seton Hall. Um so I, I would give state like a B minus but obviously subject to change. Right. And sure you know, opportunity for opportunity for quality wins. Maybe Q1. Maybe not. I mean, you talk about with Tennessee. Yeah, it's tough to beat Tennessee, but those are like that's how quad one games are you know. Like they're yeah. Typically not going to be easy to win. Um unless you get like a road a generous road game. But other than that they're always going to be tough. And so I, I would go like be minus here. Yeah. And and also to as well I think uh, you know, the other reason maybe I was even a little bit harsher because, uh, one other point I would add to it as well is there's, I think there's going to be a coolness factor in terms of how the Tennessee fans react to Gainey to as well. I'm sure it's going to be overall very positive from the Tennessee fan too as well. So there is going to be that coolness factor. Kind of a whirlwind moment for Gainey. So, you know, looking forward to him living in that moment. But in terms of these two games, I actually would give these more of a B+. Uh, just because I think from a win ability standpoint, both these are, you know, in my opinion, definitely winnable games. You're playing in the Bahamas where I think, you know, from an NC state fan perspective, you know, you're going to have, you know, your your few NC state fans are able to make the trip out there. Same thing with the other two opponents. So you know, there's not really a environment against you standpoint. It's truly like a in my opinion like a pickup game. But then, you know, like you said, I mean, I think these are still going to be, from a resume perspective, a low end Q1, probably Q2 games, which are still solid games, but I think also two, they're going to be they're going to be valuable, but also to in valuable in terms of figuring out, you know, testing yourself. Uh, you know, I think these are going to be two great tests no matter what. And then obviously it depends on how who the four team is. But, uh, in terms of, you know, I think, uh, you know, coolness. Sure. You know, it's it's cool that you're playing on the CBS Sports Network. So it's going to be nationally televised, but also to as well. It's going to be a great test. A low end Q1, Q2 game, so valuable. Uh, you know, I think everything you could really ask for in a non-conference game there, um, jumping over to my, uh. For those who follow up, you talk that know this. My second favorite team, the South Carolina Gamecocks. Uh uh uh, interested your thoughts on this game, Ethan? Uh, that's a home game, right? Correct. Right. That was the SEC game. Yes. Um, should be a win. Yeah, I would, I would rate this as a. C plus, uh, like, this is one of those. See, like. Yeah. Like you're just not you're not getting a ton out of this game, which sucks. Um, because, you know, it's not going to be Q1. You hope it's a Q2, but this is one of those where I, I would complain about the quads, where it's like, you know, it is playing like Bart Turek, for example, has South Carolina projected to finish 89th with that, which I believe would actually make this a Q3 game? Um, I don't know how you can make this a Q3 game, and like a road game at the 74th best team in the country, a Q1 game that just doesn't make sense to me. I don't like the quads here. I would just get rid of quads altogether. I really would. Because again, I don't know, like I, I don't think there should be any difference between playing the 75th team and playing the 76 team. To me that's just dumb, but sure that this is the system, right? And so you've got to deal with it. Again, this is this isn't an NC state decision. They didn't choose to play South Carolina at home. So you don't really like that's not a complaint about the way this was put together. This was just what ESPN decided. Of course Will Wade would have been great. You know, like from an entertainment perspective, um, I guess is there like, I know some people are like, oh, safety concerns. I don't know, maybe like, um, Chris Beard went back to Texas Tech a few years ago. Like, it's not an unheard of situation. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I would go like a C here. Um, just because there's like, it's a game you should win, but you're not going to get anything for winning it. And if you lose it, you're going to get you're going to get punished. Now, you know, maybe South Carolina. They're in the SEC, obviously. Maybe they can bump themselves up a little bit, um, because of that. And it ends up being a Q2 game. But to me this is just kind of a low, uh, low reward. Yeah, high risk type of game. And it's just like, okay. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think you pretty much hit it right on, right on, right on the head there. Uh, you know, I don't really have anything else to add with South Carolina game. You can't really do anything about it. Uh, you know, it's what's given to you. And so the only thing that you can say, just go take care of business. December 1st at the Lenovo Center. Uh, you know, it should be a very hype crowd at that point. But, you know, just go take care of business here. And, uh, we'll move on here to the fourth game that we know so far here in Ole Miss. Uh, it's going to be another neutral site game here in Biloxi, Mississippi. Uh, obviously coming off of, uh, facing Ole Miss last year, beat them 8990, in Greensboro. Uh, 30 year under Chris Beard. Uh, um, you know, for me, I'll, I'll actually jump in here and kind of give mine here. I would give it a b a solid B, uh, you know, obviously I think with Ole Miss here, they've, they've lost a couple pieces rebuilt a little bit here. Um, so it'll be interesting obviously depending on how Ole Miss is playing at that point. So it's just in my opinion really is just a matter of the, the unknowns. Uh, I think from a coolness standpoint, like, you know, okay, neutral side, I'm in Mississippi like, you know, just doesn't really pull my eyes necessarily a ton. I think from. Here in Mississippi. Biloxi, Mississippi. Uh, where the where this is, it's that's the city that's in. Um, so again, that that's just that's kind of really basically my point on is just like, okay, from a standpoint, from a opponent standpoint, you don't really know what you're what you're facing yet. Uh, you know, but also to as well, from a site standpoint, you know, it's, you know, it'll be obviously a very Ole Miss heavy crowd, you know, no shocker there. But um, so that's why I give it a B, because I think it could still definitely be a quad two, uh, type of, uh, of win, especially being, you know, but that's kind of the frustrating part is it's going to be labeled as a neutral site game, even though it's the furthest thing from a neutral site game. It's, it's a it's a it's a it is an away game. Uh, but it just won't be recorded on a resume perspective. Is that so? I kind of I kind of landed at a B here. So what's your thoughts on it Ethan. Yeah. Yeah I to me you have to grade this, including the game last year in Greensboro because it's a deal, right? Like it's you got you we got that game. If your NC state NC state got that game. And so now Ole Miss gets that game. Absolutely a trade off I'm willing to take. You got, like, a C-minus version of Ole Miss last year. Um, I really expected them to be better. I thought that would almost certainly be a quad one game. Uh, and it was spent a lot of the year as a quad three, if I'm not mistaken. Obviously, they made the run in the SEC tournament. Um, so for me, I'm willing to make that trade off. Biloxi is, if I'm not mistaken, is not really that close to Oxford. Like, it's almost a, like, all the way across the state. Um, so, like, Memphis would have been closer. Um, even Nashville, to be honest, might have been closer. Um, so I like yeah, to me, like, again, this whole series to me is an A plus. If I was making the schedule, this would be what I like. This is these are the games I would make. So I would probably obviously again, last year's game wasn't a plus an hour away from campus. You get the neutral site for it. Oh, yeah. Um, Ole Miss ended up being worse than you thought, so it was an easy win. Uh, even if you would have preferred them to be a quad one. Um, so for me, I'm, I, I like this game a minus. Um. Wow. B plus like that. That's where I would be because, um, again, you're just, um, you know, stacking opportunities against the SEC, and this is, what, five mid-major, three SEC games plus two more in the Bahamas and we haven't even gotten we're not even halfway through yet. So. Yeah. Um, yeah. I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan. Give me give me the breakdown here for the VCU game. Um, VCU is in a a plus. Actually, a is a plus is probably because that's a very usable game, right? That's the thing. Like, you absolutely could lose that game. In fact, you probably will. I think I think I will probably pick NC state to lose that game going up there. But that's awesome. You're going to learn so much about your team in that environment against a team of that caliber where like the thing with playing, it's a team like VCU who's a mid-major. They don't get opportunities like NC state, especially coming to their building doesn't happen. And they they rarely get opportunities to build an at large resume. We saw that this past year where they were 26 and six, and they were going to get left out if they hadn't won their conference tournament. Um, and look like could a win at NC state have flipped that? Yeah, absolutely. Like you could argue NC state got into the tournament because they won that VCU game. Uh, and so to me these games are awesome. Going on the road to VCU again. This would be my entire non-conference schedule. Like I would just like I, I know I'm going to learn what my team is really made of. I'm gonna learn like, okay, who's who's got some guts, who's going to go on the road and, and, um, you know, really show me something because you're going to learn more. Like, this is going to be a tougher road game than like half of your ACC road games, in my opinion. Yeah, well, I think it stands out to Ethan as well to that of these, you know, non-conference games we mentioned so far, only one of them is at home. And that one home game is against arguably your easiest opponent, uh, which, you know, obviously from a, you know, building the the win loss record column is not what you, where you want to be, but in terms of figuring out what you got in terms of building a resume, it is what you prefer. You know. Yeah. Put us, put us, put it, put our backs, put our backs up against the wall early in the season and especially two as well, because even if you slip once or twice, you know, you lose to a VCU, um, you lose to, uh, you know, to a Tennessee like you can more than make up for it in the ACC schedule as well. So, you know, plenty of opportunities there. And so it's it's yeah, it's great to see us getting challenged so early. And and I'm one of those guys to where I, I don't care about the losses I, I just don't like the committee. The committee has repeatedly shown us they do not care about the total number of losses. They want to see you play real teams. They want to see you win some of those games. And if you have to, if you have to lose six of them to win four of them, that's cool. They'll take that trade off. Um, and so if if I'm building a schedule, I'm absolutely saying, okay, if I lose a game on the road at VCU, great. I learned about my team. We're going to go out and get better because of that game. Yeah. Um, and, you know, same thing with a number of these other games. Just to close the loop on playing in Biloxi. That is a five hour drive from Ole Miss. Wow. So I mean, what would I mean that I'm not even sure what the comparison of North Carolina would be for that. I mean, that would be like. That'd be like going to like Asheville to Raleigh is about. Yeah, but like Patton. No further than that, I think. Right for it. Yeah. So so yeah. Like that's a that is a hike. Um, for the Ole Miss fans. And again, I don't I don't know if we have a date on that yet, but like when you do. Yeah. Asheville's a little under four hours, so you know it's further than Raleigh. Yeah. So again, if there's something else going on, there's not gonna like if there's Ole Miss is in a football game or something that weekend, there's not going to be anybody there for Ole Miss. So sure. I think that would be um, you know, beneficial for state. Yeah. So, uh, you know, now that we've kind of touched on each one of these games that we know so far, Ethan, from the non-conference schedule, what overall grade would you give it? Because like you, I think you're kind of hinting at it already in that, like you said, you know, if if you were to just wrap up the non-conference schedule with just this right now, you'd be happy. So I'm sure this grade's going to be pretty high. Yeah. I mean, based off what we know so far, um, it's an A-plus, like, for me, um, a like, I guess, um, like, you're playing really good teams, but I also. Which is great. You're building the resume. You do have to be careful to win some games, right? Like this can't be a situation where because we, you know, you have bet on that side before where you go, you play 7 or 8 tough teams and you go one and seven like, well, that's kind of when it becomes a problem. I think it was at 20 2019 where state just played like a million quad one games and they lost a bunch of them by like 4 or 5 points. Right. And they lost to Virginia in overtime. That's the one I always remember. They lost to Virginia in overtime. Virginia ends up winning the national title that year. And you know, it's like you're going to punish state for that. So you do have to win them. But at the same time, you don't you have to win some of them. Right? I feel like there's a bunch of winnable opportunities like I, I don't view this as like a murderer's row gantlet or anything like that, like they're quality games that are going to make you better, but you're also not like you're not playing teams that are just on a completely different level from you. Again, the only game I would throw in that category right now is Tennessee, and I'm not even sure they're on a different level. They could end up being there. But right now maybe, I don't know, Like we'll see. So yeah I love it. And obviously we'll see. Like the by game still matter. You can't be playing a bunch of three teams in the three 50s that drag you down. Um, so obviously there's still still some stuff to see there and you would like. I know there's going to be a segment of people who want to see some more interesting home games. Um, and I get it, like you're going to games, you're paying for season tickets. Absolutely. Um, those don't really help the resume, you know, so if you're looking at it from that perspective. So, um, yeah, I think again, like, I kind of used to the Kevin Keats style where it was we're going to play for four big games and the rest are going to be just bad teams. And this is just such an upgrade over that. It's such an upgrade. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I think an A probably reflects that. Well, because even if you play, you know, what you would call a, you know, a scrum team that, you know, the problem is that with those games is that if you don't beat them by 30, then NC state fans are still going to be on you being like, well, why didn't you blow them out? You know? So, uh, but yeah, I mean, for me, I 100% agree as well. A plus, it's just it's just a whole different vibe. But I think it's it's a vibe that matches the level that we want to be at. Like, listen, like we don't we don't. We should, we should be be beyond, you know, uh, beating the Joe Schmo, you know, and focus on the big picture here, which is, uh, competing for AC title and competing for a sweet 16, you know, lead a Final Four again, you know, that that shouldn't be a, you know, a once every 20 years or once every 30 years thing that should be, you know, a more consistent level. And in order to get there, we gotta be challenged. We gotta we gotta raise the bar here and make it crystal clear that it's going to be a long season here. But, you know, the further the better you can test your team and the better, the better you can, uh, you know, get them playing against tough teams as, as a team. Because that's the other thing to keep in mind to as well is that that this is really going to challenge, you know, where are the gaps, uh, you know, within this team. And they're going to have to they're gonna have to answer the bell at an early stage here, uh, but also to as well in the fact to as well Ethan, that two of these teams, Ole Miss and uh, South Carolina you faced in Greensboro last year, you know, the Ole Miss game, you took care of business 89, 89, 80. But the, uh, South Carolina game, it took a a heck of a shot from Paul McNeil that I swear was was, you know, my my heart stopped for a minute there because I was like, we're not about to lose the South Carolina, right? Please. No. Even in an exhibition game. An exhibition game. Yeah, yeah. But luckily enough. Luckily enough for me. Ethan, if my heart did stop, uh, you could always, I could I could always just hope that one of the people around me, uh, had done some training with our with our sponsor, AlphaGo of CPR training and big, big thanks as well to our sponsor, AlphaGo CPR training for sponsoring today's episode. 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So with that being said, I wanted to jump into a little bit of this OCC schedule here. Again, we'll have time for sure to talk about, you know, the the roster breaking down that down even further here, even to breaking down the schedule probably once the full dates get released to as well, and kind of seeing when the game is matched up, etc. here, but kind of looking at them over, you know, from a high level here. Uh, what was your initial thought when you saw our repeat ACC uh, opponents was Cal and Wake Forest, uh, and that we wouldn't be facing Duke or USC at home for the first time in forever, about a century. Um, if you're trying to win games, it helps, you know. Like, again, it's all about to me. It's all about the perspective that you're looking at it. If you're looking at it as like a a fan, like, I want to tell my USC fans or my Duke fans, which, by the way, I don't even know if it like, I don't run across Duke fans in like in my daily life. Like, I'm just not sure they exist in North Carolina. Um, so I don't know why that would be in that category, but yeah, like it sucks from that perspective. But at the same time. You're playing Cal, you're playing Wake Forest, like, uh. And it's sucks that you have to get stuck playing Wake Forest twice a year. I don't like that, I get that. ESPN needs to have Duke and uncW play, so twice, play twice a year. And that's the only reason. Like, I just don't understand why it can't. Why you can't just play round robin. You play every team. Once I take that back, I do understand it's because of the Duke. UNC. If it wasn't for the Duke UNC Cingular game. Mhm. Yeah, I'm sure it would be round robin. But you can also just make them play a non-conference game like I'm sure that would happen. So neither school is saying no to that. So um, I think everybody else kind of suffers as a result. Like I'm sure there's some other interesting matchups like Florida State, Miami, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, stuff like that. But yeah, like it's it's just not great to have to be shackled to playing weight twice a year. I don't like it. I just don't, um. And you draw it again for for winning games if you're trying to count wins. Um, you know, it's good. And, you know, thankfully for Steve Forbes, like, he's just been an ideal coach at Wake Forest because every time you go on the road there, it's a quad one game. Like, they're not good, but it's a one game. Uh, because, you know, he, he, uh, schemes his way past the, you know, Ken Palm and, and all that stuff. Um, so it's not great, but it's not great from a fan perspective. Uh, I, I, I have family in out in Cal, actually. So like, that one is a little closer to home for me, but I get it like it's Cal like nobody else. Nobody cares about that. So. And it's not like it's not a basketball school or anything like that. Um, they were a solid team last year like that. Like, those are absolutely two losing road games like Forrest and Cal. But ultimately, like, if you're going to be a good team, you should go on the road and get those. Um, so yeah, at home, Obviously you should be able to clean up and you know, you hope that one, maybe even two of them can end up being a quad one game. Yeah, I think Florida State and Louisville definitely fit that mold. Uh, even a Pitt SMU for sure, uh, can can be up in that echelon of high Q2 even quad one potential as well. We'll see here. But, uh, I mean, I do want to ask you plainly, Ethan. I mean, like we've already talked about the non-conference that we know so far, uh, playing, you know, neutral sites. Uh, you know, at Ole Miss, uh, but predominantly at Tennessee, uh, you're playing at VCU. Uh, and you look at this ACC way schedule with Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, UNC, Stanford, Virginia and Virginia Tech. I mean, really, every single one of those away games, uh, and you throw in Cal and Wake Forest if you'd like to as well. But Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, UNC, Virginia and Virginia Tech, all all of those I, I would I would consider as tough road environments and you know, but then you look at the home schedule when you say Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pitt, SMU, I mean, maybe 2 or 3 of those home games. If we played them on the road, I would really consider as tough road environments here. I mean, has an NC state so far in your head ever, to your knowledge, had a more tough away schedule than you can remember here? Because, I mean, I'm looking at saying, I can't imagine how it could get really much tougher, which I like. Hey, we want the challenge. You know, you want the smoke. You know, come get it. So if you're if you're counting some of the neutral sites. Yeah. Like Tennessee. That's that's that's that's a tough one. That's kind of like. Right. But since it's not a true road game, like if you have to split up that way. Now if you're talking, you know, games away from Raleigh including neutral site like. Yeah probably. Um, and so I don't know, like Georgia Tech, I would not throw in there even Virginia Tech I wouldn't know Virginia Tech. Some of like trick. Has Virginia Tech expected to be much better than I think like the consensus is. Um, but, you know, Virginia is going to be good. You know, Duke's going to be good. I'm not sold on unk. We'll see. Um. You don't think Matt Abell can carry the torch? Ethan Torbert currently has uncW 53rd in the country. Um, as I mean, it's it's a young team. They have very 17% of their minutes are returning. Yeah. To me, if NC, I mean, NC state didn't want Matt Abell back, even if Will Wade had stayed like that was so to me like that. Is he going to be their best player. Like I don't that would be concerning because NC state would not have let that happen, you know. So um, but yeah, I mean, in terms of environments, Duke, uncW, Virginia. Um, I'm blanking on some of the other ones that you mentioned. But yeah, it's it's a gantlet. It's a gantlet. And again, that's why going to VCU in November, early December, whenever that is, you're going to learn a lot about yourself in that game and that's going to be important. Those games are going to matter, especially a team trying to figure out how to play together and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a gantlet. It absolutely is. And um, again, like it could expose you, you know, like there there is a downside here. Right. Like there is this, this, this does lower your ceiling as a team, I think because you could if you struggle going on the road and you're not able to get some of these because of that, you could find yourself being like 18 and 13 at the end of the year 17 and 14, where it's like, man, we tested ourselves, but we we weren't ready for it. And so there's there's absolutely risk. Um, but to me, it's a, it's a risk worth taking because if you are a good team, you're going to be able to, um, to win some of those games and it'll pay off. Uh, down the road. Yeah. And if you saw right there Wolf Pack Nation what Ethan just did. And you want more of that in terms of the statistical breakdown, the stat breakdown, the recruiting picture, you name it. Uh, my man Ethan right there drops three of those videos a week on our Patreon. So if you want to get more of that for only $5 a month. So, so lessen even a cup of coffee a month, uh, go down to the link in the description down below. Sign up for our Patreon today and get access to our members only content here today here. But Ethan, to wrap it up here, uh, just to give a little bit of teaser for our fans here about, uh, you know, where we kind of think this roster is going shaping up compared to this schedule here. Uh, I know CBS sports came out with, uh, article that put NC state as a Final Four in, uh, even in a 76 team, uh, NCAA tournament bracket. Uh, I mean, like we've said, there's a lot of opportunity on this, on on this, on the schedule right here to to build a resume here. Uh, do you think NC state men's basketball so far, with what you know about the roster can answer the bell? Yeah, I think this is a tournament team. I don't think there's any question about it. I expected them to be a tournament team at 68. And now there's eight extra teams. Yeah. Again I, I think they're a top 40 ish type team going into the year. I think offensively the firepower that they have is excellent. There's a camp there's a gamble part of it where it's like you know Justin Gagne is banking on being able to, um coach up the defensive part of it, which I'm sure he can. But how to what extent is the question that we're not going to know that? Um, obviously, and until we're into the season. But yeah, I think this is a tournament team like, I, I am going into the year expecting this to be a tournament team and not particularly that close. Like not on the bubble. Um, I think this is a team that should be in that nine seed range. Somewhere. Somewhere in there. I think they've got some upside. I think there's there's there's some risk there as we've talked about. Defensively the schedule's tough. Like if if you're not able to get some of those things in line the schedule is going to punish you. But ultimately to me, I think, um, you know, you have enough opportunities on the road to where if you're able to go 500 in those games, you'd be ecstatic. And that would certainly be enough to, uh, to be a tournament team with ease. Agreed. And you heard there right there, Wolf Pack Nation, if you haven't already, make sure you hit that subscribe button as we are going to be coming out with some more content, especially over the summer here. Breaking down this NC state men's basketball roster, given our predictions even to as well. Uh, but also to again, they've got a lot of football content we're going to be getting into even got some awesome baseball behind the scenes footages or I guess, footage episodes coming up, uh, here too as well. So again, hit that subscribe button. So that way, first of all, you're notified whenever that content comes out. Also, to really help support us in the channel two as well and do us a big favor as well. Hit that like button and leave a comment down below. Which game on the schedule so far are you most looking forward to? Maybe. Maybe? I mean, hey, if you want to go for the layup and say the UNC game, sure, hey, go for the layup. But if you want, you know, talk about why you're excited about that VCU game or Tennessee game, you name it. Leave that down the comment down below. We'd love to hear it. And we'd love to interact with you down in the comment section. Uh, and also to as well, if you haven't already. Once again, go down to the description, join our Patreon. Only $5 a month for some amazing behind the scenes members only content, and I'll see you as well if you're listening to us on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you listen to us, do us a big favor. Leave us a five star review. Greatly appreciate that as well. And as always, give us a follow if you talk now on Twitter. But with that being said, Wolf Pack Nation, go pack y'all.