When: Saturday February 14 – 4:00 PM

Opponent: Miami Hurricanes

Prediction – KenPom (KP) / Bart Torvik (BT): NC State 81-76 / NC State 83-76

Coach Wade after Louisville: “This should never happen. That’s not the standards of our program. … It’s embarrassing for myself, it’s embarrassing for our program and it’s embarrassing for our fans.”

“We’re going to be judged on how we respond. I told the guys afterwards I still believe in them, but we had a major setback.”

Miami is NET 36, this is a Q2 game. Overall, the NET impact of this one game is less critical than the Wolfpack’s ability to bounce back from a humbling trip to the woodshed last Monday night.

Key Player Injuries – Not Expected to Play

Terrance Arceneaux – Hurt his ankle/achilles again against Louisville. Coach Wade did not seem to concerned in the radio show, but no specifics.

Old timers remember Maryland’s All-American point guard John Lucas. He is good friends with Jim Larranaga. (wink wink) First year Miami head coach Jai Lucas is John’s younger son. Lucas is known as a dynamite recruiter and got his first head coaching job this season after previously working as an assistant for Jon Scheyer at Duke.

Like everyone else these days, Coach Lucas had to rebuild his entire team. He brought in 6 freshmen, 6 transfers and one international player.

Miami got their best win of the season Tuesday, leading wire-to-wire and beating UNC 75-66. UNC insiders tell me that Hubert was unable to book the ‘blue crew’ refs he had at the Duke game and ended up with 18 fouls called to the Hurricanes’ 9, resulting in a 6-point advantage from the line. Miami’s Udeh Jr and Reneau each had double-doubles to help Miami also win the battle of the glass. UNC’s Caleb Wilson is reported to have fractured a bone in his hand in the first half, so that gets partial credit for the Miami win as well.

Key Player Injuries – Not Expected to Play

After the embarrassing loss at Louisville the team should be ready to rally, and after the embarrassing letter from the Student Wolfpack Club Board to the students the student section should also be ready to rally. Reverse those ballcaps! Everybody rally! Wolfpack wins 80-69.