NC State head coach Will Wade met with the media following the Wolfpack's 77-76 overtime loss to No. 19 Kansas Saturday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Wade’s interview.
On defending Melvin Council, Jr.…
Incredible, incredible performance by Council. I mean, it's a game he’ll probably tell his grandkids. It was a great performance by him. Give him credit: he had five threes on the year coming in, and he hit nine tonight. We adjusted and kind of moved back up. We were guarding him in the paint to start the game, then we adjusted after he made his third three. That was kind of our line of demarcation; when he was going to hit that, we were going to adjust. We adjusted after he hit the third three, but he was in rhythm and got going. Give him credit; he played tremendous and made big, big shots for them.
On the defense and the team’s competitiveness…
Look, it's like I told the guys: the results right now are lagging from our work. The results haven't shown on the scoreboard yet, but we're massively better than we were 10 days ago when we left Auburn. The team's a lot better. Now, you can splinter when you're taking on water on these losses like this, but I don't believe this group will. We are getting better defensively. Offensively, we're playing a little bit better. We got good shots. We missed a lot of threes tonight, but we are getting better now. We've just got to stay together and keep making that progress. We are making improvements. The scoreboard just hasn't been able to show that yet.
On adjusting to Council’s success…
We made the adjustment, and we didn't guard them in the paint. We just went over the ball screens instead. You look at everything when somebody scores 36 on you. I do think their offense wasn’t as fluid with how he was playing, but give him credit. He made big, big plays. He made big shots at the start of overtime. Those two threes at the start of overtime were great shots. He did a great job.
On NC State’s history versus Kansas…
I didn't know that [this was the Wolfpack’s 14th straight loss to the Jayhawks]. This was my first loss to them. We've got to get better, no matter the opponent. We've got Texas Southern on Wednesday, and we've got to make progress the next couple days and get better for them. I didn't know we played Kansas 14 times, but we just need to focus on ourselves, moving forward, getting better, and improving.
On growing in previous season…
I told our team after the game, our team last year that won a game the NCAA Tournament, we were 5-5. We started the year 5-5, and then we were making progress. Our team at LSU that won the SEC, we were like 5-4 at one point, 4-3at one point. It's staying together and continuing the progress. When the scoreboard doesn't show it, we've got to continue to work, continue to be about the right stuff, continue to get better. Our defense is improving. Our offense is still good enough. We've figured out some of the rotational stuff. We've figured out some of the parallel tracks that our guys need to run on. We've made a lot of progress, and we don't want to erase the progress. If we keep making progress, I feel really good about where we'll be at the end of the year. I think we'll like where we are, and we'll appreciate the struggle. Sometimes to get to that side, you've got to go through some struggle, and that's certainly what we're certainly what we're doing right now.
On the end-game situations in regulation and overtime…
At the end of regulation, we had it in kind of a fast break situation. I don't think we were going to get much better than [Quadir Copeland] shooting a little four-foot runner. I don't think anything we drew up was going to get anything better than that. Coming off the free throw, just with the timing, calling the time out, we were trying to get the ball to half-court, call timeout again, and then run one of the plays that we work on. Look, you want to get a look at the basket which is what we got; it wasn't a great look, but with 1.1 seconds, you're not always going to get a great look. You’re trying to get a decent look, and we got it. We got a decent look. We could see the basket, and we threw it towards it. I thought at the end of regulation, letting them play it out and with the broken play, I think, you know, Darrion [Williams] was a little bit of traffic there. I think that if he hadn't been in traffic, he would have gotten a little bit cleaner look, but I'm not sure we could have drawn anything up to get much better at the end of regulation.
If he saw more of the effort he wanted…
I’ll have to watch the film. I don't think today was an effort issue. It was more of some execution and that sort of thing. I don’t think today was an effort issue.
On his perceived calm after the loss…
Look, time's running out. I'm not hitting the panic button, like you said, but there is a an urgency about what we're doing. We've scheduled these games, and we haven't won them, and we've also played the toughest non-conference schedule in our league by a pretty wide margin. We haven't won the games that we needed to win. That's just a fact, but our team is good enough to win a lot of these games, and our team, if we go back and play some of the games before this one and played like this, we probably would have won a couple of them. We’re not there yet. Look, I've been around long enough. It's a long season. It's 30 games. We're a third of the way through the season right now. We're a third of the way through the season. Are we where we want to be? Absolutely not. I appreciate our fans today. I thought the crowd was phenomenal. Fans were absolutely awesome, and I'm disappointed for them. I'm disappointed that we hadn't been able to put a better product out there for them, but we will. We will, and I feel like, in short order, this team is going to continue to get better. We're going to continue to move forward. In the coming weeks, we're going to be a lot different team, a lot better team, and a team that, a team that everybody will be proud of, but we're just not there yet, but we're making progress.
On Matt Able’s fourth foul where he got elbowed in the face…
They didn't really say anything. It was a common foul.
On coaching Copeland…
Sometimes, you've got to reel him back in. The six turnovers tonight, some of those were pretty detrimental to our cause of winning. There's a fine line there. We're always straddling a fine line with him. You take the good with the bad, but it's been more good than bad for sure.
On Ven-Allen Lubin…
He's a warrior, man. He's cramping. We've got to continue to get Musa [Sagnia] a better boost. Musa's a better player than he showed you. We've got to continue to get Musa better so we can give Ven some rest. We can't keep asking him to play 40 minutes a game. When you look at the Texas game, he played all those minutes. He just gets so worn down. We've got to continue to develop those guys behind him, but he's been phenomenal. He's unbelievably consistent. He’s an unbelievably hard worker, and he’s just a tremendous, tremendous person.
On reassessing the value of each of the games that have passed…
Look, we haven't won some of these bigger games that we've scheduled. That’s just a fact. We haven't won those, but I do think we're close to winning them. I don't think that every game's a referendum, but we've certainly got to start winning some of these. At the end of the day, we've got to start winning some of these. We let an opportunity slip by today. We've got to start winning some of these, and we've got to start making progress on this. That's where I see where we are.
On the Lenovo Center atmosphere…
The atmosphere was phenomenal. Our fans were great. I'm so disappointed that we let them down and couldn't pull out a big win for them. Hopefully they'll keep coming and keep supporting us. Good things are going to happen. Good things are coming. Good things are going to happen. I believe that. I believe in this team. I believe in this group, and we're going to continue to work. We’re not giving in. We're going to dig in and battle harder.
