WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — It may only be the first week of January, but NC State men’s basketball seems to have only one path if it wants to make the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season after losing to Wake Forest 77-59 Saturday evening at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum: win the ACC Tournament again.

The reason why it seems NC State (8-6, 1-2 ACC) will have to win the league tournament is because it is playing in one of the weakest power conferences in the country. As of now, the ACC is projected to have just five teams make the NCAA Tournament, and NC State only has three Quad 1 games on its schedule — Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and Pittsburgh — and has yet to win a Quad 1 or 2 game.

A win over Wake Forest (11-4, 3-1 ACC) most likely wouldn’t have done much to add to an at-large resume as it was a Quad 2 game, but it would’ve counted as a conference win which NC State must stack up to earn the highest seed possible in the conference tournament. The Wolfpack doesn’t want to be in a position again where it has to win five games in five days.

That’s if the Wolfpack makes the ACC Tournament, which is no longer guaranteed after the league expanded to 18 teams. Now, three schools will miss the tournament and NC State has looked like a team that could finish in the bottom three of the conference.

For the second straight game, the Wolfpack unraveled in the second half. Against Virginia, the Cavaliers outscored the Pack 41-28 in the second half. Today, the Demon Deacons won the final 20 minutes 39-27. In both contests, NC State moved the ball well in the first half, leading to open shots — it had 11 first-half assists against Virginia and eight against Wake Forest — but it combined for just five assists in the second half of the last two games.

For this iteration of NC State basketball, that simply won’t work. This team doesn’t have a player who can create offense at will like DJ Horne or DJ Burns. Senior guard Jayden Taylor is looked at as the Pack’s go-to scorer, but he hasn’t shown the ability to be a number one option. Senior guard Marcus Hill’s game is limited to drives to the rim and tough mid-range jump shots. Senior forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield doesn’t have the offensive arsenal of Burns. And the rest of the roster is made up of players who rely on others to create shots for them.

When the opposing defense doesn’t have to send more help toward one player, defenders can stay with their assignment. And NC State hasn’t shown it possesses a player that can consistently win one-on-one matchups, making almost every offensive possession a struggle when the ball isn’t moving.

“For whatever reason, the ball sticks in the second half but we’re trying to run more sets in the second half so the ball doesn’t stick so we don’t get to become individuals,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “I think with this particular group, we’ve got a couple of things going on when we get behind because everybody’s trying to figure out who they are. I think we got some guys that think that they have to take it upon their shoulders to bring us back, which leads to a lot of tough shots.”

NC State turned the ball over 13 times — it entered the game averaging 9.8 turnovers — which it can’t afford to do while already having a small margin of error on the offensive end. It also scored under 70 points and moves to a 1-6 record when it is under that number.

When the offense isn’t clicking, the defense has to step up and that hasn’t happened as of late for the Wolfpack either. In NC State’s first 10 games of the season, it hadn’t allowed an opponent to shoot over 50% from the field but in three of its last four contests — including Wake Forest — it has allowed its opponent to make over half of its field goals, all resulting in losses.

Wake Forest entered the game averaging just 68.5 points per game, the second-worst in the ACC, but it scored at will, shooting over 50% in both halves. Even with senior forward Ben Middlebrooks back on the court, the Demon Deacons outscored the Wolfpack 38-20 in the paint. That’s an area where NC State is supposed to thrive, entering the game 8-1 when it outscores its opponents in the paint.

“We got to be tougher, and we just got to focus better,” said senior guard Dontrez Styles. “We have our little spurts where we locked in. We’re focused on the game plan. Then some points of the game we’re not as focused, and we let the game get away from us like we did tonight.”

Styles said the team had to “lock in” four times and “focus” four times during the nearly five minutes he sat at the postgame press conference. He essentially had no other answers for how NC State was supposed to improve from this game.

Keatts had more of a vision for how his team must get better.

“This year’s team is not consistent right now,” Keatts said. “Not consistent with what we’re getting from each player, each game. One game one of our guys will have a good game, and then the other one, somebody else may have a good game. So I’m looking forward for more consistency to help us as we move forward.”

If NC State wants any chance of making it back to the NCAA Tournament or even making the ACC Tournament, it will need to find that consistency fast. The Wolfpack must be locked in for every game the rest of the way if it wants any chance of defending its ACC crown.