After 16 games, the NC State men’s soccer team sits on the brink of a long-awaited return to the NCAA Tournament. More importantly, the team has proved a worthy contender to some of the best teams in the country, going toe to toe with Wake Forest, Notre Dame and other perennially excellent programs.

With a first round ACC Tournament clash on the road at Syracuse to come Wednesday, here’s the good and the bad from the 2015 regular season for head coach Kelly Findley’s Pack footy squad.

The good:

Thanks to limited practice time, a woefully inefficient schedule and unlimited substitutions, college soccer teams typically suffer from a lack of identity. In other words, there usually isn’t a collective plan for getting the ball into the other team’s goal beside kicking it in the general direction and hoping for a break.

Last year’s version of NC State struggled in this department. Riddled with injuries, the team waffled between sitting deep and hitting on the counter and trying to keep possession of the ball. The ever-changing lineup and lack of depth in key positions killed consistency.

Roll the clocks to the present and this year’s team is completely different. In 2015 the Pack has largely stayed healthy, and other than forward rotation, the lineup and formation has stayed the same. It’s not surprising the Pack’s shock loss at Duke came when the lineup was shaken up. 

At 100 percent, the Wolfpack is as committed to a style of play as a team can get. The group plays out of the back under control, looks to dominate possession and stays disciplined within its 4-4-2, diamond midfield, formation. The team is proactive, rather than reactive, creating overloads on one side of the field to shift an opposing defense before quickly switching the point of attack.

This is facilitated by NC State’s excellent midfield, a quartet as mobile and technical as one can find in the ACC. Defensively, this group absolutely hounds opponents and forces mistakes, typically using the players on the side of the diamond to channel the opposition into the vicinity of vacuum-like sophomore Cam Steele, who bosses the middle of the field like a playground bully and steals the ball like it’s a first-grader’s lunch money.

Offensively, sophomore attacking midfielder Zach Knudson (6 goals, 3 assists) and freshman right midfielder Julius Duchscherer (5 goals, 2 assists) have carried the scoring burden. Knudson built on an impressive freshman campaign with an even more impressive sophomore season, scoring some ridiculous goals along the way. 

The pick of the bunch was a superb bicycle kick to equalize against Notre Dame, but his game-winner with three minutes to play against South Carolina — a mazy dribble through what seemed like the entire Gamecock defense — earned him national recognition on Fox Sports.

The Pack spent much of the season ranked in the top 25 according to various polls and still owns a top-30 RPI. Its strong team identity has been critical to success. 

The bad:

Simply put, the worst part of the Pack’s season has been in its clinicality in front of goal, where finishing chances simply hasn’t matched the number of chances created.

NC State has averaged just 1.56 goals per game, scoring 25 times on 214 shots in 16 games. The team’s goal differential? Zero. The Pack has conceded just as many times as it’s scored this season.

Delve deeper into those stats, and NC State conceded first in far too many matches this year, finding itself in a hole against Davidson, Virginia, Louisville, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Duke and Clemson. 

In some games, State managed to climb out, but going down a goal in 50 percent of games was a huge issue, and it stemmed from not putting matches away in the first half. Only eight of the Wolfpack’s 25 goals came in the first 45, despite typically having territorial dominance and the lion’s share of possession.

The Pack has lacked an elite scorer at forward all season, and none of NC State’s four most-played strikers contributed more than two goals and an assist in 16 games. Much of this comes down to a lack of experience, but forwards need to score goals to maintain confidence.

“You just keep those guys in front of goal,” Findley said post-match Friday about the lack of offensive production. “You’ve got to do it every day in training, and we spent time on it in practice this week. I thought their runs in the box got better. We create plenty of chances and we just need to finish them. You’ve got to keep those guys in front of goal, keep building their confidence and letting them know we believe in them and know they’re capable.”