ACC TIPOFF: Will Wade, Darrion Williams, and Ven-Allen Lubin Meet The Media

NC State head coach Will Wade and forwards Darrion Williams and Ven-Allen Lubin fielded questions from the podium at the 2025 ACC Tip Off in Charlotte. Check out what the trio had to say!

Will Wade’s Opening Statement...

We're excited to be here, excited to get the season started. Proud of our team, proud of our staff for putting the team together and the amount of progress that we've made.

Put our team together with an emphasis on being able to win, being able to win in March. We have the most NCAA Tournament minutes of any team in the ACC on our roster. We have six guys on you are on roster that have won -- that won an NCAA Tournament game last year.

We have 549 NCAA Tournament minutes played on our roster. That's 200 more than the next closest ACC team. We want to have a team that's prepared to get to March and prepared to win in March, so that's what we feel like we've put together with this group.

Very proud of -- offensively I think we're playing well. We're shooting 38.5% from three on over 1,100 track threes in practice. We got seven players shooting 38% or better from three. Our free-throw percentage coming into the year, our team average was about 70%. We've raised that to 75%, so I feel very good about our shooting from the three-point line and from the free-throw line.

I'm most impressed, Coach Howard, who is our offensive coordinator, he's done a phenomenal job. He has really gotten our shot diet correct. We're only taking 9.3% of our shots that are poor shots. Over 90% of our shots are the shots that we want to take, not the shots the defense wants to give us.

Coach Chambers has done a very good job with our defense. I'm very pleased with where we are there. I think we can have a top 10 to 15 defense in the country.

We've got seven players with over a 7-foot wing span on our team, so very, very pleased with that. Our performance group has done a great job. Our guys have gotten stronger. We've added 252 pounds to our dead lifts, lower body strength, and so strength and conditioning and our performance group has done a phenomenal job with that.

I feel really, really good. Our player development, getting our guys better, Coach Hamilton and those guys, getting our guys better from the three-point, from the free-throw line, that's been huge.

Look, we got good players. So being able to get Darrion, who is a phenomenal player. Even his picture is wrong. He's a good player. He's somebody that, look, in the NCAA Tournament for Texas Tech this past year, he averaged 21.7 rebounds and 3 assists a game. It's rare.

Obviously he's a talented player and very good player, but it's rare that you get a good player that everybody wants to play with. And he passes the ball. He moves the ball. He can play a lot of different positions, can do a lot of different things. We're very, very excited about him.

Then Ven-Allen as well. He's one of two returning players in all of power conference basketball with qualifying minutes. He has a true shooting percentage of 69%, and he has a rebounding rate of 16%. There's only two high major players that have that, and Ven-Allen is one of them.

He's also top-5 all-time in ACC history in field goal percentage from his past year. We're very excited about these two guys, we're very excited about our team, and we're excited to get started in Raleigh.

You came over from McNeese with Quadir Copeland, and you know what he is capable of and what he can bring to a team. Just how he has developed and how he has grown, what you saw from him the first day he came into McNeese to what you see right now at NC State?

WILL WADE: Yeah, very proud of Q. He's grown quite a bit really off the court, which has allowed him to be great on the court. He's constantly talking, which the number one thing I think he does for our team or for any team is he gives everybody around him confidence. Guys enjoy playing with him. He's confident, and it rubs off on the rest of the roster.

You know, look, he's matured quite a bit. I've been very pleased. There's a reason we wanted to bring him with us from McNeese. He's somebody that can help set the tone. He can help translate sometimes what I'm saying to the guys. Like, yeah, he's saying this, but he really means this. I've been very pleased with his growth and maturity.

He's going to have a huge impact on our team this year. I mean, he's 6'6". He's long. He's athletic. He does a great job defensively, and he can really, really pass the ball and move the ball.

You talked before you got this roster completed all about the fact that you wanted to get to the NCAA Tournament, you felt like you were able to do all those things. Do you feel like since you've seen practice so far that players have exceeded the expectations, or where do you feel like you can get to now at this point?

WILL WADE: Yeah, I still feel like we're an NCAA Tournament team. I think we're going to get to the NCAA Tournament. As I said, we've got the depth and the experience to make some things happen there.

Now, we've got to keep it together throughout the season. There's a lot of ebbs and flows to a season, but I feel really comfortable with our group. I feel really confident in our group. I think we've got great talent. I think we've got great fiber to us on the inside.

There's nothing I've seen that's going to temper anything that we believe or anything that I believe. I believe we have one of the best teams in this conference, and I believe we have one of the best teams in the country.

I think that we will be able to show that throughout the course of the season. By the time we're done playing, everyone will know who Williams is. We won't need a picture.

I saw earlier today that Alyn Breed has been cleared to practice. What can you expect from him, and how long do you think it might take considering he hasn't played in over a year to kind of get back into basketball shape?

WILL WADE: Yeah, Alyn is somebody who we have really high hopes for. I think he's going to have some opportunities this year, but he's practiced three times. After the first practice, he was out for three or four days because some things happened. Now he's back in a routine, and he's been able to practice consecutively this week for the first couple of days.

I think that it's very exciting to have him back. He's a good player. You can tell when he's out there playing. It's going to take time. He's practiced three times, and I give him a ton of credit.

He's worked extremely hard to put himself back in this position, to get back to this position, but we have great depth at guard, and he certainly is a very good guard and somebody that we're excited about when he's going to get the opportunity to play so he can show us what he can do.

Ven-Allen, you obviously have some experience in the ACC. How much do you feel like that helps you in knowing what to expect from this conference once you get to this year?

VEN-ALLEN LUBIN: Yeah, it just kind of helps me know what it expect from the opponents and just knowing how challenging and competitive this conference is.

So just with me, just having the knowledge and experience to be able to pour into the guys and be just a resource to help them be well-prepared on what's to come. It's something I really want to value and really want to help out the team to always be prepared and win.

You just spoke about it a little bit. You've had a little bit of a journey from Notre Dame to Vandy to North Carolina to where you are today. Just to speak to the benefits that you've had of being in these different places and why NC State is going to get the best version of you because of where you've been and what you've already seen?

VEN-ALLEN LUBIN: Yeah, I think the benefits are just learning a lot by myself, just being able to adapt to different circumstances, and also in my faith. Just to know that everything happens for a reason, and also just keep a solid mind and just see the bigger picture, stay focused, and not to lose sight and not to be distracted by any of the situations that happened.

Also, showed how resilient I was to it, also had to help with me faith and my support system and also with the coaches around me to be able to keep me steady, keep me humble, keep me grounded and just to be the player and the young man that I am today.

Darrion, I've got to ask, I saw you and Ven-Allen sitting back here as he is spouting off all the numbers, Will Wade. Just your thoughts on having that analytical of a coach and having somebody that knows all of your tendencies going into the season?

DARRION WILLIAMS: Some of the numbers he says I don't even understand. He rattles them off a lot throughout practice. Even when I was being recruited.

But he's very intentional with what he says and everything he knows. You got to kind of pick what you understand and then if you don't understand it, ask him questions, but he's a pretty smart guy.

Connectivity and chemistry has kind of been a theme that we've heard and seen over the last couple of days here. What does that look like, and what does that mean for you guys?

DARRION WILLIAMS: I think just for us we were all a new group. No one knew each other coming in for the most part. I think getting that continuity, like you said, on and off the court, and even when we went to our little boot camp and had to swim across the lake or go in the mud, Coach was in there with us. There's nothing that we do that he won't do. I think that's big towards us.

We don't want to quit on one another, when it comes down to it. I think everybody getting to know one another on a deeper level than just basketball allows us to take it to the court.

Darrion, like you said, a lot of guys coming from different places getting to know one another. What has your experience been like with Q and kind of the back and forth with him? I know he's a trash talker.

DARRION WILLIAMS: Yeah.

What's it been like to live through that?

DARRION WILLIAMS: He talks a lot of trash. I'm more of a trash talker in games than in practice. Sometimes we've gotten back and forth or him and Coach will get into it a little bit. But nah, Q has been great.

I think he has a chip on his shoulder obviously being in this conference and being at Syracuse and went to McNeese with Coach and now he's back. He has a chip on his shoulder. I think he's ready to prove why he belongs up here.