NC State HC Will Wade: "We Need to Put All Our Focus Into Winning the First Game"
NC State head coach Will Wade met with the media today to discuss his team's 4-0 start and preview the Maui Invitational.
On how the offense has played and the importance of taking care of the ball…
We have to take care of the ball more. We had 17 turnovers against VCU. We had six shooting turnovers, so 23 total turnovers. Seton Hall, which we play on Monday, is third right now in the country in forced turnovers. They were eighth last year. They've been top 50 in five of the last six years under Coach Holloway, so we're still giving away way too many possessions.
What we did against VCU, what we have to understand, it's not sustainable. We took 19% of our shots from mid-range, which is way over our number. Over half of our shots were off the bounce. There was one team that made the NCAA tournament last year that took 46% of their shots off the bounce. One team. So what we did against them was an outlier. We were very fortunate to win.
We're very fortunate to win our way, but that's not a sustainable way to play offense. We got blown up on our cuts, soft on our cuts, turned the ball over way too much, as I mentioned. So we've got a lot of work. We've got a lot of work to do there.
What are you most pleased with as a starting point through the first four games?
I’m pleased with #1, that’s good. But I mean, we've got a lot of work. We've got a lot of work ahead. Defensively, we're soft in the traps. I'll say this. I mean, look, we look like we're holding on for dear life sometimes rebounding because we are against some of these bigger teams, but our rebounding, our defensive rebounding numbers are better than we were anticipating, and we were anticipating a little bit low.
So our defensive rebounding numbers are better than I thought, and our offensive rebounding numbers are a little bit better than I thought. So I'd say that's been a pleasant surprise, but we'll talk after Maui. I mean, look, Boise's a great team. USC's a great team. USC is the third-tallest team in the country. See if that can hold up against them. Boise has had a top 25 rebounding margin, all but two years under Coach Rice.
So, I mean, we'll see if that can hold up, but so far, that's probably been the one thing I've been a little bit better than suspected. But against our two top 100 teams, UAB and VCU, which, when we get into ACC play, everybody's a top 100 team, so you can throw out all the other stuff. Against those teams, we've given up 13 offensive rebounds a game, and our assist-to-turnover ratio is one-to-one.
It's gonna be really, really tough if our assist turnover ratio is one-to-one, and we're giving up 13 offensive rebounds against, against the teams we're gonna play, probably all but three games, three or four games, the rest of the rest of the season. It's just kind of nice, y'all are just passing. Everybody gets a question, then we go up there.
Will, what are some of those other things you need to see to get to a championship level as you try, as you guys try to get a trophy down there?
I mean, look, we need to put all our focus into winning the first game. That's what I'm focused on, Seton Hall, then we'll figure out Boise or USC based on our result and their result, but I'm learning these things. You put everything into the first one, and then you kind of get the momentum going, but Seton Hall has done well in these things.
They beat VCU last year in the opening round in Charleston. They had a big win over VCU down there, and so, we need to be ready, and they're very, very good defensively.
They're top 25 in the country defensively. I mentioned their third and fourth turnovers. They're physical, they're tough. If we don't play with a little bit more purpose than we did on Monday night, we'd be, we'd be swimming in the ocean.
You guys are going to Maui. Obviously, a lot of different options for folks' competition with Players' Era, Bahamas, etc. Why did you guys specifically want to go to the Maui Industry Tournament?
Well, it was signed way before I got here, so. But Maui, I mean, Maui's the second-best tournament right now. If you look at Player’s Era, obviously, they've got the best teams, but we have the second, Maui has the second-most top 50 teams right now.
We've got four in Maui. We've got six top 100 teams and four top 50 teams. I think Players' Era's got like 17 and 16. Man, it's gotten so big. But Maui's the second-best of all the rest of them that you've mentioned. So, I mean, look, we still get what we're looking for from a numeric standpoint out of it in terms of top 100 and top 50 competition on a neutral court, which is really what you're looking for in these events.
But yeah, this contract and our contract for next year were signed. These things are signed five, six years in advance most of the time. But look, we're happy to be in it. It's a great tournament. It's a historic tournament. This is the second time I've been fortunate enough to take a team to it.
So, it's a cool place and it'll be a good experience for our players. Ven's been there back-to-back years. Tre's been there back-to-back years. They both went with Carolina and Michigan State last year. So, it's a new world we're in.
Have they talked to you about their experience?
Not really. I mean, we joked about some things, but we haven't really talked in depth about it.
What are you doing to prepare the team for the long flight?
So, we actually had a meeting on that earlier this week. So, we've got an incredible performance team that's put a ton of time into it, led by Greg Goldin, our director of performance, with Allison Wade, our nutritionist, Steve, our strength coach, and Shawn, our athletic trainer. Then, we've got a bunch of data scientists as well who work on this.
So, we actually changed our flight time. There's a bunch of different things we've done. I mean, to be frank with you, I don't understand all of it. They explain it all to me, and I'm like, yeah, this sounds good. This is intuitive. This makes sense.
But, a bunch of stuff with circadian rhythm and all sorts of other stuff. We've changed the flight patterns and the meals and the hydration and where everybody's sitting and what they're wearing. All sorts of stuff. So, they've been all over that, and we do have a plan for that. It's a massive, it's a 10-hour flight. You can get to Europe quicker.
So, we have a plan for that. Our performance team, like I said, Greg, Allison, Steve, Shawn, the data folks, like they've crunched all the numbers on that, and they've done a great job. We'll be as prepared and in rhythm as we can.
We're landing at 5:30. The sun sets at 5:44. So, we need the flight to go smoothly and right. So, it resets your body when you can see the sunset. And so, we're supposed to land 14 minutes before. So, we should be on the tarmac, and our guys can see that, which will help. And then, there are some other things that we can do. So, we have a good plan for that. We have a good plan for hydration and eating on the plane.
We're adding some extra meals, adding some extra hydration when we can and can't sleep on the plane, that sort of stuff. So, we have that pretty locked in, and those guys have done a good job. And we actually got a meeting with our players tonight about an after-practice to go through.
They know generally kind of what we're doing, but to go through all the details of everything that we're going to do and how we're going to do it and how it helps us win and how it helps us prepare.
Actually, before I came down here, I was just in a meeting on a practice, our load management, and our practices going, today, tomorrow, when we get there, what we need to d,o and what drills we can and can't do. So, we've got that planned out, as well as we can, as well as anybody could.
And so, we've got great people who work on that, and those guys do a great job.
Are you telling Craig when you can and can’t sleep?
Well, I'm not telling Craig that, but the lights are going to be on on the plane at certain times when the guys can't sleep. And so, Craig's going to have to sleep through the lights if he wants to sleep. So, we'll see how good a sleeper he is.
On Seton Hall’s defense…
Well, they've got good personnel. I mean, they take on, I mean, Coach Holloway was a phenomenal player, played for, he committed and played for Coach Amaker. When Coach Amaker was there, a guy I worked for at Harvard, but Coach Holloway was like one of the top five players in the country, maybe the number one player in the country when he committed there and went to see Holloway's from Jersey.
But that's how he played. I mean, he's a tough, just pitbull of a guard, pitbull of a player.
And his team takes on that personality. He's got good guards that can hawk the ball. He's got bigs back there that can block shots, affect shots at the rim. They blow things up. Like, if we don't cut harder than we cut on Monday night, we're just going to get, we're going to get annihilated. They're just going to blow us up. We'll be, they'll send us out of the gym. So we need to be, we need to be much, much cleaner with that. But it's just personnel, system, and mentality.
They pick up in a full-court press like VCU did. We get sped up and turn the ball over and suppress. And so those are areas that we certainly need to be much cleaner on Monday afternoon, well, Monday morning, Monday afternoon here, Monday morning in Hawaii.
On Coach Howard’s impact on the offense…
Yeah, Coach Howard's, Coach Howard's been great. He's overhauled a lot of our, a lot of our systems and a lot of our, a lot of our flow offense. And, we do a lot of shooting stuff. I'm really pleased. We're tracking, we're shooting 43 percent. I think 137 threes or something like that, 142 threes, 143 threes, something in there, 137 I think. We're shooting 43 percent, but that's, that's a product of, of Coach Howard's system, but also like Coach Hamilton overseeing our player development and those guys doing a great job with the, with the player development as well, and our guys putting in the, putting in the work.
You've had my brain turning since you said something after the VCU game about allowing people to do what they want to do from the elbow on defense. So I'm curious, what is your...
I thought you were going to ask me about technicals again.
No, I told you I would not ask you everything. I am a man of my word; if nothing else, you will learn that. You should already know that. You said, I'm going to let people at the elbow kind of... Ideally, you let people at the elbow do what they want, which is a very analytical thought. So I'm curious, what does your ideal average half-court defensive possession look like?
Pretty simple, the ball doesn't touch the paint. You keep the ball out of the paint, you force a non-paint shot, you can test the non-paint shot, and you get a better chance to rebound it. Does that answer? I mean, that's simplistic, but...
Right, but I guess they took 41 threes. I feel like a bunch of them were open. So I think some of them were by design open, and some of them were where you said, we can't let that corner three, because obviously, as all analytics know, the corner three is the easiest.
That's not true. That's not true.
Not true?
It's the easiest shot. See, that's the BS that they've spread to college. It's the easiest shot in the NBA, because the NBA, the line's closer. It's not the easiest shot in college. They trick you into thinking that because it's the NBA. Now, it's a really good shot. Don't get me wrong. It's a really good shot, but its point value is not as high as it is in the NBA or in college.
Look, I understand your question. Our defense, if you look at our defensive profile, we're going to give up a lot of threes. It's the type of threes that we're giving up, and I thought the type of threes we gave up to VCU, for the most part, about 85%, 90% of them were the type of threes we want to give up. I know to the lay fan and the lay person, it was like, oh, my God, they're giving up a bunch of open threes.
But there's a method to it, and we know the percentages that they're taking. If they're taking the type threes that we want, which about 85% to 90% of them were, and it looks like, oh, my gosh, it's an open shot, but it's not nearly as high a percentage shot as you would think if it's the type three that we want taken. And our defense is built to take those types of threes, and we've got five years of data to back that up.
But it does look like, oh, my gosh, it's a wide-open three. Well, some of those wide-open threes or late contested threes are way in our favor. So there are going to be many more teams that hoist 35, 40 threes against us.
Now you say the kind you want. That's dependent on the player or dependent on the position on the floor, or both?
More of the position on the floor, but somewhat the player. Depends on the player and how good a shooter he is, but a lot of it depends on the positioning on the floor. I don't want to get – I'm not trying to avoid your question.
I don't want to get too deep into it because some things play to our advantage that teams don't understand how to play to our advantage. I don't want to just give away the farm on what we're doing. I'm not trying to be a jerk and avoid it, but like I'm fine with the majority of the threes they took.
It was an advantage for the Wolfpack on a lot of the threes that they took. The numerical advantage was in our favor. Yeah, I'm not trying to be evasive, but I don't want to tell exactly like how – we have it all charted. We know it, and I don't want to go into like exactly how it all works because then it would give away – like it would hurt our chance to win.
We got state media here, like North Korea. We got the state media in here from NC State. Okay, we'll let him ask a question.
All of your games so far, in what ways are you, if you're even thinking like this, preparing the team for March with these upcoming slates being next week, going away?
Yeah, I think it's great. The neutral site games are great in terms of the net and everything that we have there. But, this venue – I don't know if you've been there, but the venue is like – it's very cozy, let's put it that way, right?
It's compact. So it's not – our home – we host the first and second rounds here, right? So, I mean, the Lenovo is way more apropos for like an NCAA tournament and what those venues look like.
So, I mean, I think that it's more, three games in three days, preparation for potentially the ACC tournament, preparation for that. The NCAA tournament, it's not as real – I don't make – now, to get to the NCAA tournament, you've got to pick up some good wins in these types of deals. And so I think that's important.
But I think it's important for the opportunity to play really good teams on a neutral court, the opportunity to expose our program in three national TV games, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, at a time when a lot of people are watching. Our fans have seen us, those who didn't have YouTube TV the first couple of games. But most people nationally haven't seen us.
They may see our scores and see some other things like that, but they haven't seen us. So it's a chance for us to, to step onto that national – to that national stage against other really good programs and national brands.
You mentioned how Maui is a great experience for your players. Only a couple of guys played in this tournament last year. How are you taking advantage of that? You're going to be in Hawaii, and there are other things to see to do. Is it all basketball all the time?
Well, I used to be all basketball all the time, but we're going to do – Saturday night, we're going to take them on like a cruise. We rented a boat. We're going to take them on a cruise. I'm much more – I'm a softer version of me. When I went last time, we didn't – I mean, I didn't even see the ocean. I didn't even know where the ocean was.
But, I do want – I do think it's important that they have – I mean, look, this is for those guys who – this is the first time, those guys have been – Musa has no idea where Hawaii is. And so, we do want to make sure that we have a good experience and that they have a great experience and that we have some time to have some fun.
So we're going to – look, it's a business trip. We've got a lot of stuff to do. There's a lot at stake for our team and for our season as we move forward. But we also, how many other times are some of our guys going to get to go out there? How many other times are we all going to get to go out there? And we certainly – even if we go back, we're only doing it one time with this group. So let's enjoy it.
Let's have as much fun as we can around those sorts of things. And so we're going to – yeah, we're going to do the cruise, and then we're going to – kind of going off-site to a nice restaurant that we scouted out to take our guys to a nice dinner on Saturday night afterwards. And then Sunda,y there's a luau that they do that the tournament does, which is really cool.
I don't know if you guys have seen the media, but it's really cool. It's at the hotel, and it's like, they have the Hawaiian dancers, and teams get up there and do hula hoop contests and different stuff like that. So, the tournament does a good job of giving you some of that culture. But, yeah, we're going to do the boat and all that sort of stuff. If we lose, it will be, Why did you put them on the boat, coach?
You should have had them practice.
You can't win. But we are going to have – we are going to try to have a little bit of an experience. I think that's important. Now, I didn't – five years ago we would have been – no telling what we'd have been doing. Not on a boat.
What are some things that you're telling me that I can keep the mindset focused, because I've been trapped by it?
Well, I think, look, you've got to narrow your focus into what you're doing. You've got to be in the moment that you're in. Like I can't control anything, but sit in this press conference right now and try to have as good a time as I can with you guys, and then I'll move on to the next thing.
So, when we get there, we've got to watch the sun go down. We've got to go eat. We've got to get to bed at a certain time. Then we've got to get up and get practice, and then we've got to get up and get lunch, and we've got to get up and do our film. And then we can put our fun hat on, go on the cruise, and go to dinner, come back, and the next morning we've got practice in the morning. Like you've just got to wear a lot of different hats, and I think our guys are used to that, and I think it'll be fine.
If I didn't trust our guys, I wouldn't be doing it either. Like, I trust the group. I like our guys.
I like what we have. I know when it's time to be businesslike, they'll be businesslike. When it's time to have fun, they'll have fun. And so I think that that's part of it too, is having a team that you can trust.
This is the longest you've been away with these guys. A long flight, a long couple of days, playing ball, putting on your fun hats, all that stuff. What do you learn about this group with all this time that you're going to have together, going on a road trip, flying on a plane, doing all that stuff, and also playing basketball?
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, we spend a ton of time together as a group and going to meals together, and doing a lot of different things here. But certainly, when you travel and you have a lot of other outside noise and you can have some distractions and that sort of thing. So the biggest thing in these events is you've got to turn the page quickly. Win or lose, you've got something big coming the next day.
You've got another opportunity coming the next day. Win or lose, you've got another opportunity coming the next day. And so, that's why you've got to put everything into that first game. You can't look ahead. It's got to be that first game. You've got to have a narrow focus on that first game, just locked in on that first game.
But, look, our guys all get along, really well. We've got a great belief of trust. We had our leadership class this morning here. They were sitting in the same seats you guys are sitting in. And we got into a lot of stuff. And so, I like where we are. And I think we're probably going to have some adversity on the trip. I think our team is built. I think our foundation is strong enough right now to withstand some adversity. Whatever is going to come at us, I think we're built for it. I think we're going to find that out about ourselves as we go through the tournament.
Can I drive the boat?
Hell no. We want to get back. We're not even going to get to the first game if you drive the boat. I saw you try to get up and drive the plane. You were trying to pilot the plane when we were going to the ACC media day. Yeah, we'll let you and Q drive it. Darrion will be the first mate on this. We'll be sunk in no time.
You talked about the first initial press conference, about how you wanted to get the number of players down to eight or nine. You've done that every single game.
We like it when Snell and them get to play.
With Terrance being injured, how is it?
I think Terrance will be back. I should have told you all that. I buried the lead. So I think he's been cleared. He got a good checkup. We had some scans done yesterday that all came back really, really good. So I feel like he'll be able to help us in Maui. Look, we've got 10, 11 really good players. These are the type of tournaments, three games in three days.
We're going to need different guys to step up at different times. Jerry Deng is a really good player for us. We love Jerry. But he didn't play as much as he wanted to, or we kind of had initially planned in the VCU game, because we had to play the two big lineups down the stretch to rebound. So some games are going to call for us to get rebounds. Some games are going to call, we need to space them with five guys and shoot it.
So it's going to be with some of those guys, the first five, six, seven guys. But those last, the eighth, ninth spot, we kind of got three or four guys floating around that can all play. A lot of it is going to be situational, based on who we're playing, how we're playing, and how certain guys are playing.
I intended to play Allen a little bit more against VCU as well, and the big lineup kind of messed that up. Matt had a great first half and then banged his shoulder a little bit in the second half. Probably should have given him another run. Look, we won, but we've got a lot of good pieces. We've got a lot of guys that can impact winning and help us win, and we've got to keep everybody on the page and ready. If you stay ready, you don't have to be ready.
Get ready. So we want our guys to stay ready so they don't have to get ready when it's their time. So that's the challenge with some of those guys, but our guys have been great with it so far.
All those guys I just mentioned, we're going to need every one of them in Maui, three games in three days. A lot of things can happen, and we're going to need every single one of them. I believe in all of them. I think they're all going to be ready to step up and make an impact and help the pack win when we need it.
Just kind of a random question, but I've had a lot of conversations with coaches, administrators at different schools, about just sports gambling, kind of the status of it, both in terms of mental health implications for players, not just with prop bets, but also maybe players getting into betting, gambling, and stuff like that. What kind of conversations have you had with your players?
That's a great question. So we actually had a speaker come three weeks ago, maybe? We had a speaker come three weeks ago who's licensed by FanDuel to come in and speak about gambling. He was a great player. Randy Livingston is his name. He came in and spoke with our group about all those subjects. That's something that's in front of my mind. It's everywhere. I was laughing.
Not laughing, but they're sitting there on ESPN just killing the betting and all that stuff, and across the thing, they've got the bet stuff going across the bottom line. They're all profiting off of it. So it's certainly a danger. We addressed it in our initial team meeting with the guys. We addressed it at least once or twice a month with different speakers or different articles, or different things. You saw the interview with Dae Dae Hunter.
They were in the Southland, where I was, New Orleans was. One of the kids from Farmville Central was caught up in it. Some of that stuff it's close to home, so we've certainly talked to our guys. The one good part about all of them just being wide open is that it's way more regulated, too. When it wasn't as open, some of this stuff was probably still happening. It just wasn't able to get caught by all these.
These monitoring services are on it. I've seen some of those reports. They know what's supposed to be done, and they sniff that stuff out quick. So, yeah, it's way more available to everybody, but it's also got way more regulations on it, which are able to catch some of those issues. I tell our guys, man, I've seen the geo-tracking. They can get you right to, you look at what happened with Iowa football and that sort of thing.
They had those guys right in the locker room on the geo-tracking. We have a lot of conversations with our guys about that. That's certainly a new, I would put that at the, that's gone way up the list of issues in the last three or four years.
Will, how have you seen the volume of boards involved with this group?
I mean, particularly with a guy like Paul, who didn't score the other night.
Eight defensive rebounds, yeah. I mean, look, we've got to rebound with our guards. I've been all over our guards about rebounding. We still need more from Q and Tre in the rebounding department. Q, I mean, what good is it to be a 6'6 guard if you don't rebound great? He's leaving money on the table, literally, by not rebounding.
But, look, I mean, everybody makes a big deal about the height and all that, but at the end of the day, most teams, VCU is unique. I think I said this after the game. They send four to the glass.
Most teams send three. So if they're sending four, you're still rebounding five on four if you can get all five guys in there. Now, the key is getting all five guys in there and in the fight and staying out of the rotations, which we're not saying, don't let them on the paint.
When you let that thing in the paint, you're going to be in rotations, and when you're in rotations, you're in rotational rebounding, and you're going to have cross-match rebounding, and that's just that opens up a whole can of worms. So, I think that getting those guards to rebound five on four, five on three, like, we should be able to scratch enough of those out. Look, we're not going to be the world's best rebounding team.
I've said that. I think I said that in the first press conference. Like, we're not going to be the world's best rebounding team, but we don't have to be. We just got to be, we got to hit our numbers. Right now, we're about three percentage points above the numbers that we need to hit.
So if we can stay there, it's going to be some found money that we weren't expecting. And so, we got to get all those guys to help us rebound. And to Q's defense, he had a championship-level blockout at the end of the game that got us a huge rebound. I mean, he had a championship-level blockout, and Ven does a good job. He had a great blockout, set the tone in the first minute of the game on a crackdown, on a corner cut. So, we've seen it in spurts. We've got to get way more consistent.
