Will Wade: "We Expect To Win Right Now"
NC State men's basketball coach Will Wade was recently on the ACC Network discussing his program and much more.
Here is a transcript of what all coach Wade had to say!
What have the last couple days been like as a head coach in the ACC?
It’s been good getting to understand more about the conference. I knew a lot of the coaches but some of the guys I didn’t know as well so I’m getting some time to spend with those guys and really just learn about the league, learning how the league functions. Every league has a different rhythm to it, and to learn how the ACC is, how the rhythm of the ACC is has certainly been very beneficial the last couple of days.
You mentioned the rhythm of the ACC and one of the things that people are excited about you, I know NC State fans are but I’m talking about outside of Wolfpack nation, it’s just that. I think of you and the way your teams play. You’re not going to back down from anybody, you like to make sure that you're here to compete and you’ve done that everywhere you’ve been. I think in some respects a little energy from not only folks at NC State but for the league given all the great coaches that have been through here, the hall of farmers. It’s kind of a new era for ACC Men’s Basketball, and I think the attitude, the charisma, and that energy, is not only needed at NC State but it’s also needed in the league.
Well, we’re going to worry about NC State. Whatever happens with the rest of the league that happens. We’re going to make NC State the best we can be. Look, we’re not running from anything, we like to run to things and go figure things out. So, we’re going to work on NC State being the best we can be. If we maximize everything we have at NC State, maximize our resources at NC State, we’ll be one of the premier programs in this league and one of the premier programs nationally as well.
Tell me about the style and the foundation you’ve built so far and what’s left to do. I look at some of these guys you’ve gotten from the portal. The Michigan States, the Houstons, the Florida States, those are defensive powerhouse teams. Tell me about the foundation so far and then what’s left to do in this offseason.
Yeah I mean look, we’ve got some length, we’ve got some athleticism, we’ve got some defensive minded guys, but at the end of the day we still have to be able to score. So we need to make sure those guys who we have take a scoring jump and are able to show more offensively, and then hopefully add maybe another piece or so that’s got a little offensive pop to it. Maybe a proven commodity, a proven scorer, to help put the cherry on top of the class. We really like what we’ve done so far. My staff has done a phenomenal job, I’m very pleased with them and we just have to finish this off right throughout the next couple of weeks.
You brought in a couple guys from McNeese State, and then obviously you’ve got to hit the portal this year. Is that going to change over time? That philosophy of how you’re going to build that roster?
Yeah, bringing in Alyn (Breed) and Q (Quadir Copeland) from McNeese was huge. One thing is because they can translate what I’m saying to the guys. I’m not the easiest guy all the time to be around when we’re playing. Those guys can translate “Hey here’s what coach is trying to say”, “Here’s what coach really means”. They’ve been a part of winning so I think it’s important that Alyn has been at Providence before I got him and he was a part of winning. Q had a history in the league of winning at Syracuse. I think having those guys come and help establish the foundation of the program is really important to get us off to a quicker start that’s otherwise expected.
So, walking into that meeting room here in the last 2 days. I know you saw Brad Brownell in the tournament, you're a Clemson alumni and so am I. What was that like for you? Listen I know you grew up in an ACC school, you know the tradition and now you have a front row seat and do your thing for NC State, what was that like for you personally?
It was neat, look, anytime you get to go in those rooms I’ve been in them in a bunch of different leagues, this is my 5th different league. Where I’ve been a head coach, and anytime you’re in those rooms it lets you know how fortunate you are to have the job that you have and 2, how competitive everything is going to be. It’s all fun and games until you sit down and figure out, oh he’s good, he’s good, he’s good, he’s good. These are all good coaches who are all good recruiters and all have good teams, and good programs. So, it’s exciting but it’s also daunting because it reminds you of the work that you have ahead of you.
One of the big differences has been going from having 20 ACC games to 18 ACC games. What does that do for you in terms of flexibility? Maybe you can’t do that this year but maybe down the road, and how does NC State use those 2 games?
Yeah, I think you hit the key word “flexibility”. When you play 20 games, you’re locked into 20 league games and the whole key is to win out of league games. We’ve got to do better out of league. We’ve been winning 60-65% of our out of league games and we need to be winning 75-80%. We get 75-80% we get 6, 7, 8 teams in the NCAA tournament. So, this gives us a little more flexibility with our schedule. Now, we’ve still got to schedule the right teams, as a group, and we have to win the games that we schedule. There’s no way around scheduling and winning. We’ve got to do that at a higher level, league wide with all 18 teams.
It’d make my job a lot easier if you guys start really hot. A little different result in the ACC/SEC challenge, that kind of thing.
That would make all of our jobs a lot easier. That’s the goal, we’ve got to get some favorable matchups in that deal and we’ve got to take advantage of it and win the ones that we can win.
Putting together a staff, it seems like it’s never an easy thing, all the coaches seem to know each other to some respect, it’s a small community and fraternity. But putting that staff together, how difficult or how easy was that?
Well, we brought most of our folks from McNeese with us, those guys have been with me for a long time, they were with me at LSU and some back to VCU and Chattanooga. So, I think that by bringing those guys with me, they know what we do. Some of them played for me and some of them have been with me for a long time. So I tried to go with those guys, and hired a couple guys from the outside who I’ve been friends with for a long time. I think it mixes well together, and you’re only as good as your people, you win with your people. Everybody's got nice facilities in this league, everybody’s got good fanbases, and our fan base may be a little bit more passionate and better than some of them but most of that stuff is the same. You win with the people that are in your building everyday.
What got you the most excited about NC State? This is a team coming off of a Final Four, and makes that big change, then they hire you. You're the hottest name, what’s got you the most excited at NC State?
The fact that we’ve won, but not consistently, we’ve won in pockets. We’ve had really really high highs and really really low lows. We just need a stable consistent winner, and that’s on me to build a stable consistent winner. We have everything we need, there are no excuses. We have everything that we need, from an administrative standpoint, from a leadership standpoint on our university’s campus, so we have what we need and it’s on me to make it happen and that’s what we plan on doing.
On getting on the phone selling season tickets to the fanbase.
It was fun, we sold a lot of tickets that day, they sent me the responses and we got great responses. It’s a joy doing stuff like that, it’s good to interact with the fanbase to let them know “Hey we care, we appreciate you”. “We appreciate you spending your hard earned money to come to Lenovo, we appreciate you spending your money to come and watch us play”, and that’s exciting for us.
I would think that when there’s an opportunity to join an ACC school, given your background and so forth. It’s something that you’ve gotta pay attention to, and a school like NC State, that is so thirsty to win, and not to bring up Duke and Carolina, in your backyard bringing that consistency, you know what you’ve walked into. I think you also understand that you’ve got a fanbase that’s ready to go. They are ready to be a factor in the big picture.
They’re ready to go as you would say. It’s exciting and that’s what we want. We want them to stick their chests out, be proud, and be proud to be a part of the pack, and be proud of NC State. And we gotta give them more reasons to do that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when they walk into work or on Monday mornings after our Saturday games and that's on us to give those reasons to puff their chests out and let them know that we’re back and that we’re going to be here for a while. I know our fans would absolutely love that, not much they would like more than that and we’re going to deliver that for them.
I think it’s so important for coaches to come in the first year and capitalize on the buzz. And like you’ve said about this rabid fanbase. You capitalized doing a lot of different things including selling tickets.
Yeah, we’re trying to and trying to engage with the fans, it’s important that I connect as the head coach and my staff that we connect with the fans and with everybody. I think that’s an important part to this whole ordeal and we’ve put some time into that, so once we get our roster settled and get rolling we can put even more time into that. I’m excited about some of the things that we’ve got coming up to continue to engage with the fans and continue to work with the fans.
It’s interesting that you two are sitting right here because I put NC State and Louisville in the same pocket. Two great basketball programs, traditions, history, it’s expected to be great and when things are perfect things are great. Both unbelievable arenas you saw Pat Kelsey and what he was able to do literally overnight and the momentum he’s got going on. I feel the same way about NC State, right guy, right place, everything clicks, it could be an absolute gold mine.
Yeah, we’ll take what they did, you can sign me up for what they did right now, I’d sign up for it and move on but I need some shooting though. I think that Coach Kelsey did a phenomenal job last year at Louisville. Louisville is a great job, it’s a place that cares about basketball, it does have a lot of similarities to NC State. Hopefully we both can build very good programs that can challenge at the top of the league because we both have passionate fanbases, huge arenas, and really really good followings.
On not running zone defense all year until the Clemson game.
Well, we play a 1-3-1, so we’ve played a 1-3-1 3 to 5 possessions a game. We never played the 3-2 or the 2-3 that we played against them. So we never have really done that but we’ve tinkered with that and put it in our conference tournament. We were pretty concerned about a team in our league in Lamar. They had some big guys and we weren’t the biggest team and we were a little concerned with Lamar’s bigs. So, we had a week, we had a double-bye in our conference. So we practiced and had a week or so to tinker with it and we didn’t end up using it in the conference tournament but it came in handy against Clemson for sure.
Did Brad (Brownell) say something to you today at the meeting going “We really appreciate that look” because they had 13 points going into the half and I’m sitting there watching and going “who are these guys”? I don’t even recognize them anymore.
He’s a colleague now. I didn't want to bring that up because I’m trying to get off to a good start with most of those guys so we didn’t bring that up.
I mentioned the fraternity is so tight and this is an interesting time for all us “old heads” that understand what the league looked like in the 70s, 80s, and really the glory time in the 90s, really hall of fame coaches. Every league will go through it at some point and time if you have excellence. There goes through a change with transitioning with coaches, players, and everything else. For watching that literally as we speak in the league. And to see a team like Louisville who was just an absolute bottom feeder for a couple of years, now all of a sudden you can’t get a ticket. NC State’s been sitting on that doorstep, it seems like much in the spikes and so forth. But what you expect from Duke, Carolina, Virginia’s kind of going through that now with Tony Bennett. Syracuse as well with Jim Boeheim, it really is an interesting time. I know you're a historian in some respects despite your young age, but if you have a chance to have a front row seat here this could be a really cool deal.
It’ll be a fun ride, I think there’s a lot of good coaches in this league. You’ve mentioned some of the transitions that we’ve gone through within the league. But you look around that room, there’s a lot of really good coaches and a lot of guys that can build excellent basketball teams and excellent basketball programs. I think the next 3-5 years will be a lot better than let’s call it “Post COVID” here in the ACC and it’s going to be an exciting time.
Is there a plan in your head about how long this will take or can the transfer portal change all of it if you hit the right numbers and the right guys that fit and can stay relatively healthy you can win big?
We expect to go to the NCAA Tournament this year. We expect to win right now, this is not going to be some long rebuild. You're building a team every year, we get a few more out of the portal than we would like. It’s not sustainable to build out of the portal every year. We want to retain some guys, sign some high school guys, and go fill our gaps from the portal, not build our team from the portal. But right now, we’ve got to build our team through the portal. I feel good about who we have and I wouldn’t bet against us. I like our odds to compete at the top of this league, I like our odds to get to the NCAA tournament and this will be the start and we’ll be able to build from here.