NC State head coach Will Wade met with the media following the Wolfpack's 75-63 win over UNC Asheville Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Wade’s press conference.
On Ven-Allen Lubin’s performance…
Ven was great tonight. He's very consistent. Look, he's making dunks and layups where guys found him. Darrion [Williams] found him. [Quadir Copeland] found him. Those guys found him. He was able to get behind the defense and make some easy plays, but he finished better at the rim. He didn't finish real well at the rim on Wednesday night. I thought he did a better job of finishing through contact and finishing with force on a few of the dunks.
On responding after the Hawai’i and Auburn trips…
Look, we just needed to win. I wouldn't say it was perfect. We just needed to win. We'd been rough for a couple days on them, but we needed to win. We got a big week ahead of us coming up, and we need to prepare. We need to rest. We probably don't need to see each other for a while tomorrow, and then we’ll regroup a little bit and get ready for a big week ahead with Liberty on Wednesday.
On emphasizing getting the ball to Lubin…
It was a little bit how it played out. Our guys always look for him. He also got five offensive rebounds. He had over half of our offensive rebounds, so he was active. When you're active, the ball will find you. Our guys have a lot of confidence in him, and he does a good job always being in the play but not ever being in the way. He does a good job of moving around. That was apparent today, and that's why I got a lot of easy looks.
On playing 11 players early…
Well, I'm trying to see who we've got. Part of the reason I started Scottie [Ebube] was to win the jump ball. We lost the last couple jump balls — well, we won the one at Auburn, but that was kind of luck. The other ones in Maui, we lost. He also plays with an edge. I mean, he threw the guy out of the way to get the offensive rebound. He brings a certain toughness to him that we don't have a lot of in some of the other guys. I felt like he had a great practice yesterday, and I felt that he deserved it. There was a basketball reason it could help us: I wanted to win the tip, so that certainly helped us. We tried a lot of guys out in the first half, and then we're going to see who played well. I thought Alyn [Breed] did some good things consistently. Jerry Deng hadn't played much; look, he didn't make shots, but we know he can make shots. I thought he did some good things. I was proud of Matt [Able] as well. There was some positive stuff from giving some guys some opportunities because, look, some of those guys been sitting over there. We were rolling guys in who were making a lot of mistakes, and then they're sitting there going, "I make the same mistakes,” so I think we owed it to give some of these guys some opportunity as we try to pare this thing down and figure out who our best groupings are.
On Able’s improvement from the previous games…
He's got a lot of growth still. Look, he’s a freshman. There's going to be ups and downs. There’s going to be good and bad with everything. You're going to see some of that. You saw some of the bad, and you saw some of the good. His left hand finish on the drive off the middle pin was a really, really good play. It was good to see him hit the corner threes. There was certainly some progress, but he wasn't as jittery today. Sometimes, he gets in there, and he's real trigger happy from the start. He doesn't settle into the game. He did a better job of settling in a little bit better today.
On his familiarity with Mike Morrell…
He knows our stuff. We know their stuff. One of his assistants was our GA, too. He was yelling, “Fist one." I was like, “They’re dribbling off the first pass,” and he was like, “No, I changed it.” He was yelling down, “No, I changed that up." We use similar terms. He was calling the half-court defense open, which is what we call it. A lot of the stuff is similar. The terminology is similar. It's what you grew up with. When you hear the calls, you kind of know what they are, but he had changed a few of them. He’s a great guy, a great coach. He’s done a great job with their program, and they’ll continue to win and have a big year.
On how he solves problems…
It depends on what the problem is, what I feel like the issue is. A lot of it, I run through different mentors, different people. Some of it, I just do myself: just study your stuff and see what it is. I try to measure twice and cut once. I don't want to make a quick decision or a rash decision before I watch everything and before I have all the information. If you have all the data, you want to make sure that you're making informed decisions. We will continue to do that. We're going to continue to tinker with stuff until we get the right formula.
If having a new roster has attributed to the slow start…
No, I think that's an excuse. I don't like excuses. There are a lot of other teams that have new rosters that are playing well. Look, we just haven't hit our stride. We haven't found the right combinations yet. I think that's fairly obvious. I'm not stating anything that's not obvious, but look, we've got good players. We've got good pieces. It's on us to fit it together and have everything play and look a lot tighter and a lot better than we have. Today, we played a few of the more defensive-oriented lineups which our defense was somewhat improved. That's not a very high bar to clear, but it was somewhat improved. When we play some of those defensive lineups, our offense is a little clanky, so we've got to find the balance on that, and I think that's that's important for us moving forward.
On concerns with Williams’ offense…
He had six assists today and one turnover. He was more of a playmaker today. We don't ever want Darrion to take a back seat. Look, when the ball's in his hands, good things happen. I think he had the second-best plus-minus on our team. Ven was number one, and he was number two. When he's in, good stuff happens. He's in a little bit of a rut right now, but he's going to get out of it. We have ultimate belief in him. When you say he only took six shots, okay, but he had six assists, and he got Ven a lot of easy shots. He did a good job in the middle in the zone. We got him the same look off of our zone set two different times that he hit a shot. He's going to be better, and he's going to be a really good player for us more games than he's not, but he hasn't been as good as he's capable of. He'd be the first to tell you, but we're going to get him there. I have a lot of confidence in him and a lot of belief in him, and I think that he's going to be fine long term.
