NC State head coach Will Wade met with Wolfpack Sports Network to discuss the 118-77 loss at No. 24 Louisville.
Coach, 118-77, I didn't think I'd say that number aloud tonight, to be honest. 118 by Louisville. 77, not as many as you average. 118 is a huge problem. 45 points from Mikel Brown. He was on fire tonight, to say the least. 10 of 16 from three.
Yeah, just, I mean, we got bludgeoned. I mean, there's no way to artfully talk around. I mean, we just got killed. So, I mean, look, the funny thing was, I thought we had, you look back in hindsight, we had a great shoot-around. We actually had great prep. I mean, you've been in our shoot-arounds.This was one of our better ones. We just got off to a slow start. We got down 14 to 4. We cut it to 5 and missed the 3 in transition. We could never get any footing, and they just, I mean, they just whipped us off the bounce. They just whipped us off the bounce, drove us. And when they weren't laying it in, they put us in rotation, and we're picking who they wanted to shoot from 3. So, I mean, we just got, we got whipped.
So, there's no two ways about that, no two ways around that. And, we're going to be judged on how we respond. Our teams responded all year. So, I told the guys afterwards I still believe in them. We just had a major, major setback. I thought we were beyond these type performances. I thought we'd kind of grown past this, but we hadn't. And, we've got to respond the right way this week with some good practices and get ready for Saturday.
Points off fast break reflect a 9 to 5 Louisville lead, but it doesn't feel reflective of the game. They were out and running a lot.
Whoever's run that stat, they were way wrong. I mean, look, we missed so many shots at the rim. We took some quick 3s, and they just converted those.They were so fast converting those at the, at the other end. So, it was, you know, it was way more than that. They, look, they beat us everywhere. Transition, I mean, you name it, they, they beat us. So, it was just one of those nights, and we've got to recover and be ready to move forward.
One of the things we talked about before the game was Louisville's ability to rebound the ball pretty well. They had you beat on the glass pretty early and then continued it. They went 42 to 28 on the glass. You had one offensive rebound in the first half, I think. So, early on, that helped them extend the lead out.
They had more defensive rebounds than we had total rebounds. Look, I mean, you can look at a stat sheet all you want. I mean, we got beat in every category. I mean, we got – we were outcoached. We were outplayed. I didn't have us prepared for the moment. I mean, we were outclassed in every way imaginable, and the stat sheet reflects that.
