What does early bracketology say about NC State?

Bracketology in July is probably even more useless than those way-too-early Top 25 lists for college football released in January, sometimes hours after the final seconds ticked off in the national championship game.

Nevertheless, they are fun, and noted bracketologist Jerry Palm of CBS has come out with his preseason bracket. He has NC State as a No. 9 seed in the West playing Texas in a bit of a tantalizing storyline. Longhorns head coach Shaka Smart was NC State athletics director Debbie Yow’s top choice to replace Sidney Lowe in 2011, but Smart remained at Virginia Commonwealth. Mark Gottfried was ultimately hired.

Other ACC teams ahead of NC State include Duke, an obvious preseason No. 1 nationally, as the top seed in the East. UNC and Virginia are No. 2 seeds, Louisville a four, Florida State a six and Virginia Tech an eight. Thus, in essence, Palm is predicting that NC State would be a top-half-of-the-ACC team and battling the Hokies for sixth in the league. Miami and Syracuse were both 12 seeds that got play-in game berths.

Do Palm’s projections fall in line with precedent? To find out for free, sign up for basic access to ACCSports.com.