NC State head coach Will Wade discussed Tre Holloman, Darrion Williams, Boston College, and much more on the ACC's weekly zoom call.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the zoom call.
Coach. I wanted to jump right into it. You got a tough stretch coming up soon. I believe six of the next eight games on the road when it comes to a defensive standpoint, what's just being your focal point over this next little tough stretch is coming up to kind of not let the offensive woes affect the team defensively.
Yeah, I mean, we've got to be able to guard the ball better. Our defensive emphasis has been guarding the ball one-on-one. We haven't guarded the ball very well, which has put us in rotation and put us in some really, really tough situations. So that's been our emphasis and we're going to need to certainly be better defensively than we've been.
Hey Will, good afternoon. How is Will, I mean, how is Tre's ankle doing after last game?
It's doing better. I don't know what his status will be for tomorrow, but it's doing better. He's in good spirits, but I don't think it's going to be anything too long-term.
And then just to follow up on that, Alyn has had an expanding role the last six, seven games anyway. Now, obviously could step into that role again if you need him to. He started the last few games. What has it been like for you seeing, you know, his role expand and seeing him kind of be able to play more minutes for you now?
Yeah, I mean, look, we, we want Tre to play a major role. We've got a lot of guys who can start. We want Tre to play a major role in this injuries, a little bit of a setback, but Alyn's stepped up and done some good things.We need Alyn to be more consistent shooting the ball and make shots.
That's what Tre brings to the table for us and Tre does a really good job of making shots and we need Alyn to make the open ones. He's missed some open ones to start the last couple games.And so we need him to step up and make those.
Yeah, Will, how has the team responded, in the last 24 to 48 hours since the loss on Saturday?
I think we've responded well. We had a pretty good workout yesterday. We just got to Boston. I'm literally ran to my hotel room to get on the call here. So we haven't practiced yet. We're going to practice over. We're going to practice here this afternoon.
And so, but yesterday we seem to have seemed to have a good, good, good quick workout. We're short and sharp yesterday. We'll see how it, we'll see how it goes today, but haven't sensed any, haven't sensed anything that's alarming thus far.
Hey, Will, hope you're doing well. What would be your scouting report of Boston College going into this game?
They're very good defensively. We've got to do a good, much better job running offense. We've got to do a much better job of playing harder offensively than defensively. Donald Hand Jr. is certainly a handful, draws a ton of fouls. There's a really good job driving the ball. I hadn't shot it as well from three this year, but he also hadn't seen our defense yet this year. So that seems to be something that helps guys who haven't shot it as well, who've shot well in the past.
So we certainly have got to be aware of that. Number five is a really good shooter. They're physical inside. They do a really good job getting free throw offense and rebounds and one of the best baseline out-of-bounds offensive teams in the country. So they, they're physical. They're tough. It's going to be tough sledging for us offensively against their defense.
Just a quick follow-up. I know you were joking a little bit about a three-point shooting, but in all seriousness, how do you balance that with continuing to stick to your strategies you typically use each game?
Well, the type of threes we're giving them up. We can't get, it goes back to what I spoke about the beginning. We can't get we can't get beat on the ball. We just get beat on the ball too much and it puts us in rotation and we give up, wide open, wide open looks, a lot easier looks than we would want to give up. So the symptom happens way before the final problem, which is the open three. And so trying to fix the symptom as best we can.
Will, obviously the last game out, the bench wasn't nearly as productive as I'm sure you'd like for it to be. I wanted to ask you specifically about Matt Able, obviously a kid that early on in the season looked like somebody that was going to be pushing for the starting rotation, but the last, five, six games has not been nearly as productive as I'm sure you're hoping for. Just your thoughts on his game and how much it would impact the team if he was able to step up.
I mean, Matt's a great player, somebody we have a lot of belief in and look, he's a tough kid. He's been battling through some things, and I think that we've got to do a better job of putting him in some better positions to have success offensively.
And so but he's somebody that we believe is going to come on and be able to be able to help us move it forward this season. But it's not, it's not, it's not on him as much as it is on us to make sure that we put him in, put him in some better, some better spots where he can experience some success and then, with that success he'll gain confidence and he he'll be able to take off from there.
So I can assure you nobody in our program wants wants to play better than he does. He prepares extremely hard with the scouting report. He works, he works extremely hard we haven't done a good enough job of helping him put it all together yet.
Hey Will, Darrion shot better on Saturday and looked like he was a little bit more comfortable than he's been. Is it just a matter of getting back into a rhythm after, after an injury or is there something mechanical or is it a confidence thing with him?
I think it's a little bit of all of the above. I mean, I go back to what I said on Matt. We haven't done a very good job of putting him in very good positions. We've been trying to play a little bit more out of flow of offense and we're going to you know, put the skids on that and get the ball to our guys, who who can help themselves and help our team.
And so, I think that as a coach, I haven't done a good job on that. And so we're going to make that adjustment as we, starting tomorrow night, Darrion has been playing better and just hasn't all come together yet, but I believe it'll come together soon. And once again, we've got to, we've got to help him out and we've got to help a lot of our guys out. But Matt and Darrion came up on this call. We particularly have to help those guys out.
I'm obviously your schedule is very crazy, but do you ever get to enjoy like watching McNeese State or some of the other teams or coaches that you're friends with? Is it just hard to keep up with others?
Not McNeese. I follow McNeese really closely. I got a big game tonight with Stephen F. Austin. I watch part of the game on Friday night when I can't. So, I mean, look, I still have a lot of, a few of my players are there and one of my closest friends is the head coach and the AD and all that.
So, I mean, I still follow them. Really closely and some other friends across college basketball, I follow when I can. But now we're, we're locked in on NC State and we have we have plenty to worry about and plenty to occupy our time here with our team.
