NC State head coach Will Wade joined the media on the ACC Zoom Call discuss the Georgia Tech loss, previewing the Clemson game, and much more!
NOTE: Click the video player above to watch the full zoom call!
Hey, Will, good afternoon. Obviously, going back to Clemson tomorrow for the first time as a head coach, you know, what is that experience, going there and kind of starting your career there? What were you able to take away and still use, 20 years later?
I mean, look, Clemson was great to me. I graduated from Clemson, but I mean, look, our team needs to win. And Clemson's a great team.And so it doesn't have anything to do with nostalgia or any of that, any of that stuff. So, I mean, we've got to find a way to play better, find a way to see if we can win a game in a tough environment against a really, really well-coached and really, really good team.
Hey, Will, hope you're doing well. Obviously, you guys played Clemson last year at McNeese. Is there a way to look at last year at all or with the different personnel? It's totally different in this era to even look at maybe how you tried to play them last year against Brad.
No, I mean, what we did last year has no bearing. I mean, we had really good athletes. And so, we were able to do some things with athleticism that we're not going to be able to necessarily do with the group we have at NC State. So, I mean, what happened last year is going to have zero bearing on this game tomorrow.
And just a quick follow-up. You guys have been elite, I think, per the numbers at the rim this year. Had some issues against Georgia Tech. Watching the game back, was there anything specifically, their rim protection, was there anything that you kind of noticed in that game?
Yeah, I thought they did. I mean, we were 10 of 22 at the rim against Georgia Tech. I thought they did a good job of being physical with us on the perimeter. And I think that we had to expend so much energy to get to the rim, that when we got to the rim, we struggled to finish once we got there.
Will, when you were recruiting Quadir Copeland out of the portal, what do you remember from sort of your first conversations? And what did you sort of tell him to expect if he came to play for you at McNeese?
Q, we would talk every day. I'd FaceTime with him almost every day when we still talk every day. But when we were recruiting, we'd FaceTime almost every day. So look, he's got some personality. He's got some, just a way about him, a confidence about him, a swagger about him. I think that stuff, that stuff stood out.
And then we brought him down on a visit. A lot of times in McNeese, we didn't even visit kids. We signed a lot of kids without even a visit. We just, we'd send them the paperwork and they'd sign it. We didn't have the budget to do a ton of visits there.
But with, with him, he came on a visit and you're around him, get to know him, and he doesn't ever stop talking, good and bad. And so you just get a good, just get a great feel for him. But there's a lot more depth to him than meets the eye. He's a very caring person. He's got a very good heart. He's a very good person. He cares for his family. He cares for his teammates. He cares for people. And so there is a lot beneath his exterior. There's a really, really rock solid interior and just a rock solid way about him.
And look, he's grown. He's not the same person or player that he was at Syracuse. I think he'd tell you that he made some mistakes. And he's, he's learned quite a bit since then. And I'm proud of his growth. And he's still got more growth to go.
Where do you think he's sort of grown the most and in what areas?
I think he's grown on his reliability and his dependability. I think that in terms of off the court and in terms of being places on time and doing what he's supposed to do and doing it at a level that's requisite to being done, at a higher at a high level or what you need to do.
I mean, he had a lot of outstanding academic obligations at Syracuse. That's why the visit got pushed back. And I mean, he was in a crunch at Syracuse because he had been missing stuff for a while. Now he's going to graduate. And, he does what he needs to do academically.
I just think there's a lot of maturing and things like that, that needed to happen and has happened for him. And look, he's made those changes. And so we're proud of what he's done.
Did you guys do anything special or unique to try to like foster those changes? Or is it just he got older?
I mean, I think he would tell you there's a lot of tough love. So, we just we held the line on some things. And, we had some rough patches. I mean, I sent him home from McNeese for 10 days. He went home. I kicked him off the team basically for 10 days. He didn't know whether he was ever going to come back. So, that's the way we handled it. And he's come out on the other side better for it.
Will, you said at the beginning or in the preseason that you felt like this team had a lot of fiber and that it was really connected. And you thought, that would help you down the line. Have you seen how have you maybe seen that manifest, you know, as y'all are trying to navigate the ACC season?
Yeah, well, we're certainly testing our fiber and testing our connectedness. That's for that's for sure. And so we've, we've got to do, we're going to find out what we're made of. We're going into a tough environment. They play a style that can really frustrate you. They play a style that's very unique and very disciplined.
And they're not going to give you anything easy. Everything's going to have to be earned. And so we're gonna have to stay connected. But I still believe in our group. I still believe in our team. We're not where we want to be.
But we're, we're within striking distance of where we want to be. And so it's on us to find a way to make this, to make this work. And it's going to be a really, really tough environment to try to make this work at Clemson on Tuesday night. But we're going to go in there, and, I think you'll see a team that's going to play hard and a team that's going to be a little bit better with our attention to detail.
Your team has more players from the Clemson-McNeese game than Clemson has. But one thing that has always been true with Clemson is they have a lot of size. How have you kind of seen the three bigs kind of, how do you kind of neutralize them this year?
Well, they're massive. I mean, Godfrey's one of the best post scorers in the country, top 35 in the country in terms of post scoring. Was at Clemson, then I think he went to Georgia and then came back for his first last year. So he's really physical. Big kid, number 22's very physical. Number 10's more perimeter oriented. They kind of play them more at the three. But 11 from Nevada.
Look, they do a great job sealing you. They play a tried and true style of basketball that wins a lot of games. And they, Coach Brownell's a tremendous coach.
He's got tremendous staff. Coach Donlon does a great job with the defense. And so, look, they've got a great scheme. They've got a great plan of attack. And look, they want to pound that ball inside and score at the rim and score inside that restricted arc as much as they can.
Yeah, well, I know we talked last week about Terrance and, his growth, coming back from the injury and everything he dealt with. What against Georgia Tech, he only scored three points, but brought a lot on the defensive end, rebounding and steals. What was that like for you to kind of see that consistency from him on bringing that to the floor?
Yeah, we didn't have many bright spots against Georgia Tech, but I thought Terrence's continued progression was a bright spot. I thought he continued what he had started against Florida State and against Boston College. And so we're excited to give him more opportunity tomorrow night at Clemson. But I think his continued progression and him continuing to move forward was what was good to see in that game.
