NC State forward Darrion Williams met with the media to discuss this year's team, his potential role, head coach Will Wade, and much more.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
On being a leading scorer
Don't really matter to me, stats and all, that don't matter to me, I'm trying to win, so whatever he does is better.
Is he, as coach, as intense during practices and all this stuff as he is with us? Because he can start to preach a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, he's a little, he gets intense. But he's funny though, he'll crack a joke every now and then, but he needs to.
You know that this is a one year thing, not just for you, but the way college basketball is. It's probably the only year this team is going to be together. How much pressure or how much emphasis is on, you know, doing everything you can this season?
Yeah, I mean, I'm a senior, so this isn't my last year. But obviously you only get one chance with one specific group, like you said, with the quarter and everything. So just taking advantage of it and taking advantage of every moment that we get into it and having fun. It's not really pressure, I mean, I feel like pressure is when you don't know when you're going to get the exit. You don't know when you're going to get out of basketball.
You guys are about five minutes away from going to the final four. This is a program that did go to the final four two years ago. How much does that experience personally help you and drive you to get back there and have another shot at this?
Yeah, I think about it all the time, a few things you could change that we probably would have been in the final four. I feel like we could have won a national championship.
Just take advantage of it. I know I've been in that moment before, and then NC State go in to actually beat me. They were out of 64 that year and they went to the final four. There's a lot of pedigree here, and we're just trying to get them back there.
How excited are you for the real games?
It's coming up. We're getting to nitty gritty now. Now I'm excited. We've got a scrimmage in a couple of weeks or a month or so, so I'm ready for those too.
Are there any guys off the grid maybe that NC State fans should look for that maybe isn't getting the pub in the buildup?
Everybody. Paul McNeil, I mean, I feel like he can take a big step this year. Let's see. Cole Langton can go. I feel like anybody on this team can go play anywhere and play real minutes. It'll be tough. I don't know how Coach is going to distribute it all, but everybody's going to be ready to play.
How competitive are the practices?
Really competitive, especially when we get to playing and Coach doesn't like sloppy. We run for slapping. None of us like to run, so we just get competitive. The winner gets rewarded at the end.
What's been the biggest difference coming to here from Texas Tech?
Being in the main city is different, I'd say, than being in the college town. Love Lubbock. I'm just getting used to everything here, getting used to new teammates. I didn't know anybody coming here. I knew a few people going into Tech, so that made the changes totally easy.
Coming here, not knowing anybody, I think just made me open up more as a person to not just be more locked in and quiet. But it's nice, though. I really like it out here. The fan support is crazy and the football games are fun.
