The No. 18 NC State men’s basketball team will transition to the next phase of its season Thursday night, as the Wolfpack will kick off ACC play on the road at Miami.

The Pack is 12-1 after two months, and could easily be 13-0. It picked up a huge win over No. 7 Auburn in PNC Arena in mid-December, and under second-year head coach Kevin Keatts has looked like a complete team early on.

Here are a few takeaways from the season so far as NC State begins conference play:

The Wolfpack has talented, flexible depth

With just 10 eligible scholarship players on its roster, NC State doesn’t have a ton of depth from a pure numbers standpoint. However, the depth of the Wolfpack’s talent is substantial. All 10 players the Wolfpack rolls out onto the court are capable of making a big impact at any time.

In fact, despite the small roster the Wolfpack doesn’t have a single player averaging more than 26 minutes per game. On the other end of the spectrum, all 10 players on the roster are playing at least 12 minutes per game.

That ability to keep players fresh is something that plays well into Keatts’ up-pace system, and the value of having 10 trusted players can’t be overstated. NC State’s tempo is the 11th-fastest in the country at 75.7 possessions per 40 minutes according to KenPom, and the rotation of players that NC State has the luxury of is vital to that.

A big part of that ability to rotate is the flexibility of the players that NC State has. While the Pack only has three forwards listed on the roster, a plethora of talented stretch guards that can play inside and out has helped the Wolfpack immensely. This starts with the team’s unquestioned leader in Torin Dorn, who is averaging a team-best 15.1 points per game.

Keatts has done incredible things with the Pack in a year and a half

It’s sometimes easy to forget that this is only Keatts’ second season with the Wolfpack. From the overwhelming popularity of the head coach from the Wolfpack fan base to the growing number of huge wins for the program, Keatts has completely transformed NC State in his short time on campus.

The Wolfpack is now ranked No. 18 in the AP Poll, and being ranked is something that the Pack had not accomplished since 2013 before this year. With it’s win over No. 7 Auburn in December, Keatts is now 4-1 against top-10 teams with NC State. He also took a makeshift team of transfers and players he didn’t recruit to the NCAA Tournament last year.

Now the Pack is 12-1 entering ACC play this year, and the program is in a significantly better place than it was less than two years ago.

What’s ahead for NC State?

The one hit to the Wolfpack in nonconference play was its strength of schedule. The game against Auburn, as well as tough Wisconsin and Penn State teams, helps, but NC State has still had one of the easiest paths in the country so far. According to KenPom, the Pack’s strength of schedule so far is 350th of 353 Division I teams.

That will all change over the coming weeks as NC State heads into ACC play. Conference play starts Thursday at Miami, and also includes games against UNC-Chapel Hill, Notre Dame and Virginia in just the first month.

However, NC State proved with the win over Auburn that it can beat any team it comes up against, and so far the Pack looks like it can compete in a loaded ACC.