NC State men's basketball coach Will Wade met with the media today and he discussed several topics with the Wolfpack opening the season Monday night.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.
Opening Statement…
But no, we're excited to get started. I mean, we're excited. What we work for is to get to the first game. And so we're very, very excited and looking forward to the opportunity. We've got a lot of stuff we've got to get fixed from our exhibitions. Certainly most of you guys were at the South Carolina exhibition, but the other one most people didn't see.
But the back end of our press has got to get better. Teams have been exploiting that. South Carolina was able to exploit that. So that's been a huge point of emphasis, getting our pressure better and being a little bit more solid defensively in the half court.
We've been averaging giving up 11 middle drives a game in both of those two scrimmages. That number needs to be closer to six or seven. We're going to give up some middle just by the way we play. But that number needs to be four or five less than that. 11 is going to be a hard way to live all year, put too much stress on our defense if we're doing that.
And we're going to do a good job Monday night of guarding without fouling. They were in the top 30 in the country last year in free throw rate. Each of the last five years, they've been in the top 100. So we've got to do a good job guarding them and staying in front without fouling. So scoring on them will be tough.
About one in every five possessions, they're going to play in zones. So they play a 2-3, a 1-3-1, a triangle-2, a box-and-1. They've got all sorts of different zones, all sorts of different things. They also play pressure man. They're going to press us. It'll be important for us to hang on to the ball.
We haven't been very good, turnover-wise, either. I've been pretty disappointed with that. Overall, our assisted turnover in the two exhibitions we've had is 1-1, 26 assists, 26 turnovers. Our problem is really our bench. Our bench had two assists and 11 turnovers. But that's certainly problematic.
Each of the last six year,s they've been top 100 in the country in forced turnover rate. And so if we can't handle the ball better against that, it's going to be an issue. So that's something that's going to be important going into Monday night.
I've been disappointed. We're leaving points at the free-throw line as well. We've been tracking as a 75% free-throw shooting team. We're shooting 66% in the two scrimmages. We're leaving 1.8 in, rounded up, probably two points a game. On the table, we're going to need those two points. 77% of conference games are three possessions or less. So you're going to need two points.
We can't be leaving points at the free-throw line. So we're not going to get a ton of threes off against them. They do a great job guarding the three-point line. Coach Moton does a great job. But they've been 11 times he's been top 50 in the country in three-point field goal percentage defense. So they just don't let you get them off. They do a great job there.
We have to get on the offensive glass, get the ball in the paint, and be able to finish at the rim. So those will be some big challenges for us. They've got good personnel. They've got their point guard two back. Averaged about four assists a game. Johnson is a good player.
Averaged four assists a game. They shot 59% from two and 39% from three on his assist. So that shows he's getting deep in the paint and getting them good looks. They've got two 40-plus percent three-point shooters in Lattimore and Arnold, number three. Those guys can really shoot it.
They've got good personnel. They've got a kid, Slack, I'm familiar with. He was at Northwestern State, which was in the league with us at McNeese. He went to West Virginia State. Averaged, I think, 18-5 at West Virginia State. So they've got good personnel. They play hard. They'll play a bunch of different things. So they'll cause some challenges for us on Monday night. Hopefully, we've improved and gotten better since last Sunday.
You've obviously been at some big places for some openers, and I'm sure there were lots of buzz. But do you have any sense of what it's going to be like on Monday and just how excited this fan base is and what you're hoping to see from them or what you're hoping to see from your team in that environment?
No, I don't because I haven't been here at State. But I'm excited. We're practicing over in Lenovo this afternoon. We were over there last week for a little bit. You look up and you see all those seats, and you think, dang, all these are going to be full for the first game. So I'm excited to see what it's about. I don't think that I will have ever been a part of an opener where there will be 19,000 to 20,000 people.
I think that's what makes NC State great. That's what makes our fan base great. That's what makes our program great, we're going to put 19,500 in there on a Monday night at 7 o'clock. And just very, very thankful and very, very appreciative of the fans who are going to show up. And I think it should be a fun environment.
First off, I wanted to know if you had a chance to build a relationship in your short time here with Coach Moton. You guys are both known for your big personalities, and also somebody who has deep roots here in Raleigh. I just wanted to see if you had any relationship with him since you've been able to be here today.
Oh, yeah, I've known him a long, long time. We were actually at breakfast together, probably two weeks ago. But I've known Coach since he was a high school coach. I was at VCU at the time. No, we've stayed in touch and talked. When I got the job, he was one of the first people to call me. He's done a phenomenal job with the program at Central.
He had a run there where they were just running the MEAC. And the NIL there has been a little bit different. He always figures it out. As you said, he's got deep ties in the community. He grew up here. He grew up around basketball in this area. He's a phenomenal coach. He's a phenomenal person, a phenomenal mentor.
He's obviously a great player at Central as well. But I've known him a long time. Our relationship goes back a long, long time. I'm looking forward to competing against him Monday night. We have a lot of mutual friends. I've had some of my friends of mine have worked for him as assistants and all sorts of different things.
He's a great guy, a great coach. Like I said, they force a ton of turnovers. His stuff is very consistent over time. You're not top 100 in turnover force rate six straight years if you're not consistent with that. You're not 11 times top 50 in three-point field goal percentage. That stuff is consistent. That's being a great coach. And that stuff translates wherever you are.
How do you expect your team to go? What was a realistic rotation for you?
I think we played nine the other day. A realistic rotation is probably nine right now. I'd like to trim that down to eight, but we're not at that point yet. So nine is where we're going to be at on Monday night.
We've seen some promotions featuring the noise meter and certain things and traditions that you're trying to bring back. How important was it for you to kind of lean into it?
I don't know what of all this I can comment on. I don't know what's out there and what's not.
Leaning into the old traditions of NC State. How important is it for you to tie in this new era with some of the things that they've been successful with in the past?
I think it's important for our fans. I think it's important to connect with our fans. Look, we have an incredible tradition. We have an incredible history of basketball here. So I don't know why we would just throw that stuff to the wayside. That stuff's worked for a long time. And for whatever reason, we've gotten away from that. Maybe that's why our program's gotten away from being a consistent winner.
So I think that you win for a reason and you lose for a reason. If there was stuff that we were doing when we were winning for a reason, I don't understand why we would necessarily stop doing that. So I think it was more just, look, Reed Vial from my staff has done a great job with it. I told him, I said, we've got to go learn this place.
We've got to understand what this place is. We've got to know about this. We've had players from every era speak to our team. We've got one speaking today before practice. And we want our guys to have an appreciation for that. We have an appreciation for that. And we certainly want to tap into what you hear from fans.
Reed hears from fans, I don't know. Reed hears from the fans and shows me that, whether they're older folks, that's what they remember when they were younger. Whether they're younger folks, that's what they grew up with.
And so I don't know why we wouldn't tap into that if that was something that was exciting for them and something that was a fond memory for them. They can create those same memories now that they're older or for their kids. And so we certainly want to tap into our past with those traditions. I mean, I want to play like those teams, too. That's the most important part.
I know it's been, what, five, six weeks since practice began. I know right off the top you mentioned some things you want to see this team improve on, but overall, through the first month or so of the season, do you like the foundation that you've built here so far?
Yeah, I mean, you always want more, right? As a coach, you always want more. You always want to do more. You always want more from the guys. But I think we're built on a solid foundation. I think we're built well. And we'll see how that plays out over the first couple of weeks of the season. But I feel comfortable with where we are right now, yes.
You've got a couple of games on film that you have shown the team. What's the response been like from them so far, as you kind of break it down and just show what they need to work on?
Well, I'll tell you what, that's a good question, Noah. After the Appalachian State game, I think, after our first scrimmage, they think that, I mean, in their minds, the scrimmage went very well. In my mind, I was not all that pleased with the scrimmage. I came in here and I went berserk and let everybody know what I thought, and that I didn't think this was very good, and our standards weren't met, and that this was very colorful.
But that seemed to fall on deaf ears because they're just results-oriented, not process-oriented. So we had a lull where we didn't practice very well. And I thought we were kind of stuck in neutral. We had been moving up the mountain for a while, but we were stuck in neutral. We kind of plateaued a little bit. And I thought that South Carolina exhibition, South Carolina's a good team.
I thought that Sunday, they were way more receptive to my messaging this week than they were after that first one. And there are things that we've got to grow as a team. We've got to have some folks who grow up and understand that, look, just because we won doesn't mean we don't have problems. We've got some people who are just so excited about winning that they can't see the issues.
Look, we don't want to win. We want to dominate. You want to dominate. You've got to dominate with your discipline. You've got to have obsessive attention to detail with what you're doing. Obsessive attention to detail. Anybody who has excellence has obsessive attention to detail. And so we're playing against standards, not necessarily a scoreboard. And I think that covered up our board back there.
But the standards we have to reach every game. And we didn't do that in the first game. And I was not happy about that. And they got up here, and they're going, oh, yeah, we won't go. Yeah, whatever.
So we're getting better there. We were much more receptive this week to my messaging. The same issues that South Carolina exploited we had in the first one, and we just didn't have the urgency and the edge to get them fixed like we needed to.
It was like, oh, yeah, we'll fix them, we'll fix them. And then when you get exposed like that, like we did against South Carolina, you get a little more urgency and edge to us. So hopefully Monday night you'll see the team that I think we're capable of being, or closer to the team that we're capable of being.
So you've talked about the importance of playing in-state teams. But what about being able to also get in-state teams that are HBCUs and just kind of getting them in gear, playing against them, considering the history and everything?
I think it's great to play any of the teams in-state. I think it's good for our fans. Our fans, look, if you're going to ask people to pay to watch us play, and look, you have to fill out a home schedule. You can't fill out a home schedule with all high majors. Nobody does that. You just can't do that. So you have to fill that. If we're going to do that, it might as well be teams that we're familiar with. I was on campus yesterday.
There was a kid who transferred from UNC Asheville. I was giving him help. He was in a UNC Asheville sweatshirt. He was like, “Hey, I've transferred here from Asheville.” I'm like, well, we didn't give you a sweatshirt when you came here. But he was talking about he's looking forward to that game on December 6th.
He was going to request his tickets for it as soon as he comes, Monday night too, after I got done talking to him. But he was excited about the game with Asheville. That showed, all right, our scheduling philosophy works.
Look, here's the reality of it. This is how I feel. This is my opinion. This is probably not our athletic department's opinion. This is my opinion. We're going to spend the money. We pay these teams. We're going to pay. We might as well keep the money in-state. We might as well help out our people around us. Now, that's more my philosophy than an overarching athletic department philosophy, and they may get mad at me for saying that.
Well, they get mad at me for saying a lot of stuff. But my point being is it makes a big impact for Central. They can drive over the day of the game. They don't have to stay in a hotel. They don't have to do that. I mean, Mike Jones at UNC Greensboro, I worked with, he called me. We're playing them. They can drive over. I've been on that side of it. The last two years, I was playing buy games, and I was on the other side of it.
It's a pain when you've got to bus two hours and fly somewhere. And also, you may get $80,000 for the game, but you spend $35,000 of it traveling. And so, when you can get 85, whatever we pay them, and it costs them five grand to come over here, they get to keep more money, too.
It's good for them, and I think it's good for the state, and it's good for the fans. I don't see much downside to it. The downside for me, and this is why people don't do it, is that those teams are fired up to play against us. Like every kid at Central, thinks they should be playing at NC State.
All the kids are great. They're all going to think that, especially when you have the in-state kids. And so, Central's got to transfer from Morehead State, from Fayetteville. I mean, like those kids are all going to be excited to play against us. They're going to have an extra edge to us. Okay. That's the tradeoff in the game. But I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. Wow.
Just kind of my philosophy on that.
I was curious, like how have the analytics and metrics that you measured, like building this team in preseason, how have they shaped up so far? And then has anyone surprised you outside of those metrics and what you’ve seen so far?
Yeah, I mean, the metrics have held up pretty well. We measure them only in live play, so we don't have a bunch of bad data in there. But, I mentioned, our free throw shooting, we're lagging a little bit there. And in practice, we've been pretty good there, but we've been lagging in those two exhibitions.
We've lagged there, which we're leaving, we're leaving two points on the table that we're counting on. Our three-point shooting has been a little bit ahead of where we want to be. Everything else is what I would consider in the normal range. Players-wise, exceeding expectations, like everybody's doing, about what we thought. I've been pleased with what we've got. We're getting out of the guys for the most part.
Will, just when you look at this, how geeked are you that this is finally going to be for real? These games, it's finally the wait is over, and you're going to get the real action. Do you still get excited at this point in your career?
Oh, I'm excited every day to be the coach. I mean, look, when you do it like we do it, it's a lifestyle. It's not a job. So, I mean, this is what we do all day, every day. This is all we think about. This is all we do. And so, shoot, I mean, I'm fired up every day. Practice, whatever it is, I mean, look, we take a good attitude to it. And most coaches don't like doing a press conference. I try to show up with the best attitude I can. I mean, I try to show up and have a little fun and answer a few questions.
And, like, everything you do, it's like, what's the point of doing it if we're not going to have a good time with it? But I'm fired up for Monday night. I'm fired up for practice today. I'm fired up to get into Lenovo and practice today. I'm excited about tomorrow and just everything. The whole process is exciting to me. Like, I enjoy that part of it.
However, we do today, tomorrow, and Sunday, we'll show up on Monday, good, bad, or indifferent. That's what we'll show up on Monday. But, yeah, I'm excited, and our players are excited. I think everybody, I think our fan base is excited. Like I said, we're all aligned. The reckoning's here.
Need to get you a stand for that.
I know. You mentioned how the backing of the press led to some open shots against South Carolina. In the half-court defense, it looked like as well, maybe the speed of the way they moved the ball led to some open shots, from three or open lanes. What do you think led to kind of some of the open shots in the half-court defense?
Well, I'll start with the press. I talked about the backing of the press. We got beat on the backing of the press, but it started on the front end of the press. We had terrible ball pressure. We let them bring the ball up the middle of the court like we had some. It started on the front end of the press, and then what you see is the end result, and it looks terrible.
The stuff on the half-court starts with the middle drives, starts with our active hands or non-active hands, and they were whipping the ball. We were behind the play too often. We were behind the play. We were chasing the play instead of dictating the action.
And so our defense is meant to be, it's meant to dictate the action and to be aggressive, and we were very, very passive, and I think we've been able to correct some of that this week, and we haven't shown that. We hadn't been that a ton in practice, but we didn't have the edge that we needed to us.
We didn't move with the, and the way we defend, it's like a matchup zone, switching man, whatever you want to call it, but, if one guy doesn't do what they're supposed to do, it's pretty obvious, like it leads to open stuff, and we've had, a guy or two out there not doing what they're supposed to do, and we had some lineups out there that we probably wouldn't play with.
We had some of our more inefficient lineups out there just because we were subbing people in and trying to get some people some, some things like that, but, I mean, I've told some of them today, or, yesterday and today, like, you're either going to get this fixed or you're just going to sit. Like, I don't have time.
I'm done playing around. I've had time in two scrimmages to kind of see what you can do, and everybody says, just put me in, and I'll show you what I can do. Okay, well, I've seen what you can do, all right? I see what you do, all right? So you can either get it corrected and do it how we want it done, or you're ass can sit down. I mean, it's your decision. I really don't care. We'll have other – we got other guys that can come in, and we got other guys that can come in and help us.
Will, you've been a part of some and built some teams that have won league championships, that have won conference tournament titles in NCAA tournament games. Is there a certain trait that you're looking for in teams, or do you see any traits in these guys? I know you haven't played a game yet, but what are some traits that you're looking for that you can relate to some of the best teams that you've had this early in the season?
I think every team evolves as the year goes on. If we're the same in a month, if we're the same in two months, then that'll be problematic. So, I think those teams all evolve. The one thing that always happens whenever you win or you win big is there's going to be adversity.
There's going to be a tough moment where everybody's got to kind of rally and do what you need to do. That's what's exciting about going to a movie, right? You don't ever go to a movie for the beginning or the middle. You want to see the end of the movie.
That's the most important part of the movie. But there's usually some stuff in the middle that causes the end to be exciting. But you've got to get through that stuff in the middle to get to the end of the movie.
Nobody gets their popcorn and leaves after 20 minutes of the movie, right? No, you stay because you know the ending is what's exciting. So you look back, and it's easy to look back now that you know the ending, but there's always going to be some tough spots.
There's always going to be some adversity. The reason I think this team's built is the number one characteristic we look for in each player, was resilience. We wanted guys who would overcome some adversity to get here. I've overcome some adversity to get here. A lot of our other folks have as well. So we wanted guys who were resilient and overcome some things to get here.
That was one of the questions we asked everybody on the business. And so by doing that, we've already got guys who have overcome some things, which makes it more likely we'll be able to overcome that rough stuff during the year to get to the end and put a good ending on the movie.
Hey, Coach, Wolfpack Sports Radio, Ernie Myers.
I know who you are.
You talk about Coach Moton. You know him. You've been around. He's a big personality. You see him on social media, and he's from this area. He's got a park named after him here.
The National Player of the Year.
Yeah, yeah. He's got a park named after him in the community. He does a lot in the community. You talk about players wanting to coach him, I mean, play here or whatever. He might have wanted to coach here. But the last time he was here, he won in a game here in Reynolds Coliseum. And I know that's what he wants. I know him.
He's a competitive guy.
So, that Central team that's coming in here with those types of mentalities and players, how do you coach against that type of mentality?
I think, fortunately, that was us. That's been me the last two years. So I understand their mindset, their mindset, where they're coming from, the frame of mind of where they're coming from. And so, that's what we were doing the last couple of years.
It may be different, but a little bit the same. And so, I think that the main thing is, the first part is you got to get off to a good start. The longer you give folks hope and the longer you string things out, the tougher it can be and the tougher things can be. And so, but they're, I mean, they're going to fight like hell.
They're going to be competitive. They're going to be all over it. And so, it'll be a good test for us. Like I said, I mean, they've got some things they do that are going to cause us problems. He's going to play some funky zones. He's going to switch up his defenses.
He's not going to let us get in rhythm. He's an excellent, excellent coach. He's a world-class human being and person, but he's an even better, he's a really, really good coach.
He didn't get enough credit for the actual coaching part of it because he's so involved in some of it. But, I mean, he wins a lot of games at a place that's not very easy to win a lot of games at. And so, the reason he's done that is because he knows what the hell he's doing, and he's a good coach, and he'll be, he'll be well-prepared. We know that, and he'll be ready to go.
You don't give normal coach speak. Have you always done that? Have you always been this confident in what you stand for?
I don't know if always, but kind of grow into it and kind of try to be who we are. This microphone's a little bit up up.
We got the privilege of being able to see how the event went last week, being able to see you and Coach Moore interact. Can you just talk about that synergy that both teams have had so far this offseason and how it's been able to win the whole program?
First off, I mean, One Pack does an incredible job. That event was awesome at the Angus Barn. I assume that's what you're talking about. One Pack, Steve, Chris, Reid, all those guys, they are phenomenal. We're very, very fortunate to have the leadership we have with our collective.
And Coach Moore and I, we're just excited to be a part of it and have a good time with it. But I hope our fans understand what good leadership we have at the collective. That stuff doesn't just happen. One, you've got to have good people.
To raise that amount of money, you have to get the right people in the barn, so to speak. You've got to get the right people there. We've got incredible supporters, incredible donors. I'd encourage any of our fans, if you haven't, to look up
One Pack and try to join us. Everything helps. Everything helps. It was an incredible night. Raised over $800,000. That's a huge boost for our program, for Coach Moore's program. I couldn't be more appreciative of just the leadership and the work of the collective. We're very, very fortunate at NC State that we've got such good people and a good organization with that.
I encourage anybody who's thinking about it to help us out because it helps us win. It helps women compete for national championships. It helps us compete on a national level. Just a fun event. It's cool. Our players had a good time. Both teams had a good time. Well put on event. A lot of fun.
Do you have any plans for a Halloween costume?
No. No.
What's Caroline going to be?
Good question. My wife knows that. My wife knows that. I forgot it was Halloween until last night. Before me, it was Halloween.
You're giving out full-size candy bars. Full-size candy bars.
I won't be at home. Whatever they do, they'll do. I have no clue. I'm not in charge of anything domestic.
