NC State enters the ACC season with the league’s preseason media panel slotting the Wolfpack eighth in the conference poll released Tuesday, Oct. 13 by the ACC office.
At the top of the ballot, Duke ran away with the No. 1 spot, collecting 45 of 48 first-place votes and 861 total points. Virginia, Louisville and Miami each picked up a first-place vote and landed second, third and fourth, respectively.
The individual honors went to a couple of players who drew plenty of attention from the voters. Virginia forward Thijs De Ridder was named ACC Preseason Player of the Year, while Duke’s Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje earned ACC Preseason Rookie of the Year. De Ridder is Virginia’s first preseason player of the year selection since Malcolm Brogdon before the 2015-16 season.
De Ridder was also the only unanimous selection to the Preseason All-ACC Team. He was joined on the first team by Louisville’s Flory Bidunga, Miami’s Sheldon Henderson, and Duke teammates John Blackwell and Patrick Ngngba II. Bidunga was a First-Team All-Big XII selection and the league’s Defensive Player of the Year while at Kansas last season, and Blackwell was a Third-Team All-Big Ten pick at Wisconsin.
The second team included Boumtje Boumtje, Louisville’s Jackson Shelstad, Miami’s Malik Reneau, Virginia’s Chance Mallory and Virginia Tech’s Amani Hansberry. Reneau had been a First-Team All-ACC selection for Miami in 2026, while Shelstad was a Third-Team All-Big Ten honoree at Oregon in 2025.
The preseason poll, which featured 48 voters, put North Carolina fifth, Clemson sixth and Florida State seventh behind the top four. NC State followed at eighth, then Virginia Tech, SMU, Syracuse, Pitt, Stanford, Wake Forest, California, Notre Dame, Boston College and Georgia Tech rounded out the order of finish.
The ACC’s 74th season of men’s basketball tips off Sunday, Nov. 1, when Notre Dame faces Villanova in Rome, Italy. Thirteen teams begin play on Nov. 2, and the final four open on Nov.
- Conference play starts Tuesday, Dec.
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NC States Bowl Path Suddenly Looks Far More Fragile
A rough afternoon against Wake Forest didnt just damage NC States conference standing, it also sent the Wolfpack sliding hard in the SP+ rankings, where they tumbled 18 spots to No. 80. That kind of drop changes the lens on the rest of the season, because the margin for error in a bowl chase was already thin and the Pack now have to navigate a schedule that looks far less forgiving than it did a week ago.
The remaining projections leave NC State with a narrow path, and even the favorable games are not lining up in a way that offers much comfort. A revised read on the season, which even tries to account for fan sentiment through a proprietary method, underscores how quickly the outlook has shifted, with the Wolfpack now needing to outplay expectations just to keep the postseason door from closing. [Read more 🡒]