NC State head coach Will Wade met with Wolfpack Sports Network for his weekly radio show where he discussed the Louisville loss, the remaining schedule, and much more!
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And we're here live, downtown Raleigh, Pitt Authentic BBQ, great to be here with everybody this time of the week. We're talking ball here with Coach Wade, as we get set for a big one against the Miami Hurricanes coming up on Saturday. Coach, since we spoke last time here at the restaurant, two ball games, Virginia Tech and Louisville, we can start with the Hokies, we can start with the Cardinals.
I thought we'd go back and talk about Florida State.
You want to talk Florida State? We'll talk Florida State.
Let's go back and talk about that Florida State game a couple weeks ago.
We're here live to talk about the Seminoles. That's right. 82-73, final over the Hokies, 118-77, final over Louisville. Ball game against the Hokies, maybe the best attribute of that one was the defensive effort against their backcourt, holding two of their leading scorers to three of 20 from the field. That was a job well done. You never trailed in that ball game. You had a sellout against Virginia Tech, won it 82-73. One which continued at the time, which was a six-game win streak. You felt pretty darn good about this.
It was a screeching halt.
It did. It did come to a ... There were some breaks put on the train in Louisville.
The train ran over us. No breaks. Ran over us.
118-77, the final in Louisville. Where do you want to start?
How many times are you going to say that?
Well, that was the score. That was the score. That was the score.
The third time we've been on the show. Frickin' 10 minutes. About 10 seconds.
It's true. This is true. You want to start with the Hokies or the Cardinals? What do you think?
Let's start talking about the Hokies.
Let's start Hokies. Let's go Hokies. Let's go Hokies. That sounds great. What led to such defensive ...
I'll throw up my dinner if we have to talk about the Louisville game too much.
We don't want that. We don't want that. That's a different show. That's a different situation. Three for 20. You held their backcourt. I started there.
I thought Holloman did a great job. Did a really good job on Hammond. Hammond played great last night in their win at Clemson, and so he played really well that game. Tre held him 0 of nine. He did a great job hounding him up the court. Did a good job in the press. Threw their offense off. Making 17 initiate offense, he tries to come off a lot of the action, and making him having to initiate the offense was a little bit tougher for him, so I thought our guys did a solid job in that game.
We weren't great by any stretch. One thing that's been problematic for us, we never got to this at Louisville, is when we get a 10-point lead, it goes down to five a lot quicker than it gets to 15. We do a horrible job of being able to extend leads, extend runs. We're our own momentum killer all the time, and we've been poor at that all season.
The Virginia Tech game, we had multiple opportunities where we could have gone up 15 or 20. Mike Young's one of the nicest human beings you'll ever meet. Great guy. He even said it after the game. He basically said, they'll let you back in the game with the dumb stuff that they do. He added that.
Your words, not his.
He said, they'll let you back in the game. I added the commentary of what he was meaning underneath what he was saying. That was disappointing, but we showed film on Sunday at Louisville, and I said, if we make these same mistakes, Virginia Tech wasn't capable of making the threes, but if we make some of these same mistakes, Louisville's going to blow our doors off, and I was Nostradamus.
You were predictive.
I was very predictive. I didn't know it would be that bad, but you could see the mistakes and how they would compound when you play better teams, and they certainly compounded Monday night.
So after Dallas, I was pretty excited. Remember, we were here, and I was excited. We had a nice win against SMU on the road, up like 13. You wound up winning it by one. Won the game. Took care of business.
Bad six-minute game.
Bad six-minute game. And you scolded me here at the restaurant. You slapped me on the wrist, and you said, you live in reality, but I'm very excited about the win, which is true. And so were you sort of signaling to some degree that you felt like maybe not the extent of which happened at Louisville, but that this-
I didn't know we were going to beat that bad, but I mean, look, sometimes with the team, like it's my job as a head coach to win, all right? It's not necessarily my job to win how I would like to win. It's my job to win. And so our team is not really exactly how I would like to win. I'm not talking about from a basketball standpoint necessarily. That too.
But really from like the way we prepare, the way we do things, like it's very, it's much more loosey-goosey than I would like. I like regiment, discipline, structure. We're very, very loose. That's just kind of the personalities we have.
And so when it's like that, you kind of ride the wave. And we've been riding the wave, and as a coach, I didn't really want to interrupt that. We had won six in a row, but deep down, you're sitting there going, you kind of make excuses. You're kind of like, ah, this is who we are, and we just kind of figure it out. This is who we are.
I mean, our practice the day before the Louisville game at Sunday, we couldn't stop our scout team in transition. How the hell were we going to stop Louisville in transition? We couldn't stop our scout team. And so, like, but we've been really poor in practice and played pretty decent a lot of times. So it's like, so we needed, we probably need a happy medium from where we were to where I would like us to be. We need to kind of get back to a happy medium, to a happy medium there.
Is that wave also reflective of not making a 10-0 run, a 15-0 run? Is that microcosmic of the same thing, the same kind of personality type, or is that a different beast?
Yeah, we just relax. We're just very relaxed and laid back, and just don't have the edge that we need to us at all times, which, sometimes helps us, and sometimes it hurts us. So yeah, I think all of that goes together. But look, we're 9-3. It's not the end of the world. I'm not, we've won 75% of our league games. That's not bad.
So, I look at the league as, in groups of six. So we went 4-2 in our first six. We went 5-1 in our second six against a harder group than the first six. And then now we've got, now we've got six left, and so we've got to find a way to, try to equal or better either one of those records, and we've had a very, very good season.
So, that's the goal right now, and we've got to put everything we've got into Miami, who's going to come in here confident, who's going to come in here, they have a, one thing that's worrisome, too, is we don't really have an identity. We're just kind of, we have an identity. It's, if we make jump shots or not.
We made 3-3s at Louisville and we got our doors blown off. So, our identity's more around jump shooting than, offensive rebounding or, stuff that you would particularly like your team to be, identity to be around.
But Miami has it. I mean, they are the best in the ACC at scoring and the paint. They're the best in the ACC, the third best in the ACC at offensive rebounding. That's an area that had been slipping for us for weeks, too, was our defensive rebounding. We're 12-0 when we out-rebound our opponent, but, we're about 500 when we don't. And so, that had been slipping.
So, we just had some stuff that really snowballed on us at Louisville, and Louisville was much more ready to play, played much more of an edge, and their physicality, really bothered us, and we didn't learn the lessons we needed to from the winning streak and from Virginia Tech. But, look, I was happy.
I mean, Virginia Tech's a good team. They're going to find a way to the NCAA Tournament. They'll probably be in Dayton, but they're going to find a way to the tournament. And that was a good win for us, and, I'm just disappointed how we played Monday night on ESPN. We had a great opportunity, and we just, it was just very, very poor on our part.
Ven-Allen Lubin did his thing. He's consistent in every game, and I'm not going to sit here and try to lipstick the loss to Louisville. However, there is one guy who you jokingly have put your own last name on because of how consistent he is and how much you two are in lockstep.
I don't. Our players say that. Oh, excuse me. I don't say that.
Pardon me. Pardon me.
Our players say that not me.
Yeah. Ven was, when I brought that up on the record on the air.
Unfortunately, Q's my adopted son. I had to deal with that. You get a bad apple in every bunch.
That's great.
I was in a meeting today, and they were like, well, who do we need to call for Q? I was like, well, unfortunately, that's me. I'll deal with it. Call me. Nobody called it. Just call me.
That's good. Just a direct line right to you. That's good.
Yeah. It's not good, or it's not very good.
I hope it was—well, I hope it wasn't too bad.
No, it's not bad. It wasn't bad.
That's good. I forget what I was saying. Oh, Ven. Ven's been consistent all year is what I was getting at. And he's done a really nice job. He actually did a pretty nice job in Louisville as well, at least I thought, statistically at least. I know the game didn't—
He does a good job. He does what you ask him to do. Reliable, dependable. He's, he's a great person, so I mean, yeah, he's awesome. He's the least of our worries.
He's a great kid. I do want to ask you about Louisville. You've got your five game standards. Did you meet any?
One. We turned it over at 12 or less times. We actually just got done running for it.
Oh, you were just running them?
We were just running before we walked in here. The players said oh, let's do double or nothing. I said, no chance. They always cut a deal. Sometimes, every once in a while, I'll cut a deal. Like, if we win and we get two, I may say, all right, double or nothing next game.
If we don't get all three and we don't win, then we're going to run, eight of them, and they'll usually cut a deal with me. Maybe play a little bit harder, but they wanted to cut a deal today. I said, no deal. No deal. No dice. No dice. Get on the line.
Is there anybody who stands out? Is there a best athlete on the team guy who, your last sprint, like the guy who puffs it out the best? Or your fittest guy?
I mean...
Or is it negligible?
I'd say it's negligible. I mean, none of them run as hard as I want them to. I mean, Louisville was running by us like we had our feet stuck in the mud. We were running in mud.
Even after makes, though.
Oh, I know. We watched it. I'm aware.
I'm aware. I don't know. Our best runner? The guy who wins? I mean, Able, when he wants to run, he'll win most of the time. When he wants to. Now, he, doesn't always want to. He can make it without putting max effort, but when they put max effort, he'll win a lot. Tre Holloman will win a lot. Actually, one of the faster ones is Jayme.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Kootenemy?
That's not how you pronounce it.
How do you not know how to pronounce his name? You're the voice of the Wolfpack.
He doesn't play.
Huh? You should know. If you're as prepared as I thought you were, you should know that.
He literally can't come in the game. It's ‘Kontu Nieme’.
Oh, okay.
Kontu Nieme.
Thank you.
Say that. ‘Kontu Nieme’.
‘Kontu Nieme’.
How do you not know his name?
I've talked to him a bunch.
You're the voice of the Wolfpack.
I mean, I did know his name.
What if you had to interview him for something, and you butchered his name?
I mean, I don't.
‘Kontu Nieme’.
He and I have talked a lot about, like, world travels. We spent a lot of time in Maui.
Then you should know his name!
I should. I should. You're not wrong.
You should know how to pronounce his name if you've talked to him.
You're not wrong.
‘Kontu Nieme’. ‘Kontu Nieme’.
That's Finnish, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah. I can't believe you don't know his name.
He's a good player. He really is. He's a good player in practice. Oh, stop. It's a little demonstrative. It's a little bit much. It's a little much. For those listening, I'm getting a huge eye roll right now. Kontu Nieme. I got it. I won't forget it now. That's for sure.
I mean, look. Everybody's good on the scout team. There's no pressure. That's what happens as a coach. Everybody says, oh, wow. He kills the starters every day on the scout team. Well, no joke. There's no repercussions if something bad happens. So, of course, they play free, and everything's good. All the scout team guys look good.
So, Jayme's about, what, 6'3", 6'4"?
He's a good player. Jayme can play Division I basketball. He's a Division I scholarship player. He's a good player. He's a good player. I mean, hopefully we don't get in the game, or you're in trouble. That'd be a problem. Not anymore, thankfully. You are in trouble.
I'm okay now.
You don't have, like, the pronunciation guide?
Well, I do, but he's not playing.
But what if he came on the court and got a technical or something, and you would have to say, Jayme Kontuniemi.
I feel grateful that Jayme has such a mild disposition. He's really a soft-spoken gentleman. He's a scholar.
Craig, can you believe this?
Craig's our sports information director here.
I assume Craig has a pronunciation guide in there.
I'm sure he does. Craig's buttoned. Craig's clearly more buttoned up than yours truly here. No doubt about it.
This is way more time on Jamie than I thought we would spend, to be honest.
You ever been to Finland?
No, I'd love to go. Is that in the card? Are we going to play in Finland?
No, but it's a nice country.
You ever been there? It's kind of like going to Portland, Oregon. The Pacific Northwest. It's kind of like we're out on the Palouse. Not bad. You'd like it out there. It's got a little, like, Portland vibe to it. A little dreary.
Finland has a lot of rain, maybe some cloud cover.
Helsinki.
Helsinki, Finland. Yeah I’ve never been.
Tampere.
Have you been to...I've been to both.
Really? Is that a recruiting situation?
I'm not going to tell you. I was going to tell you why I was there, but I've been there a few times. I've been there a few times. You're asking too many questions. I've been there a few times. I've been there a few times.
But, I mean, it’s... this is funny. So you’ll like this. I was over there in the fall, and it was a recruiting situation. So I went to some games, and so we had these floor seats. So I was sitting on the floor. It shows just how oblivious I am to everything.
So I’m watching the game and I’m like—I’m talking—one of my assistants is next to me and on the other side I’m just talking, yeah, to this guy. My—you know—we’re just talking, talking, talking; so I’m not paying attention to—well, I didn’t realize it to see I was talking to the Finnish Secret Service.
Two seas down was the frickin’ president—president—because their national team was playing: the president of Finland! I’m just sitting there talking to this guy like he’s—like—the head of the Secret Service at Finland.
They’re protecting the—the Lithuanian president; it’s a female—she was there—and—and her husband, and the Finnish president and his wife were there. I’m just talking to this guy like me and you were up here talking, just tell them what a nice country they got and—and yeah, he’s the, like, head of the Secret Service for—for Finland.
Wow, that’s pretty cool! Did you find out in some, like, odd way or anything? Like, do they—like—it on it... like...
Yeah, they—they—they walked him out there, and I was like—I was like, "Okay, that’s great. I met the guy. Nice guy." That’s cool. That’s really cool, actually. Yeah, it’s a pretty, pretty, pretty good deal.
And Coach, as we've got Miami, as I mentioned, coming up—four o'clock tip and a three o'clock airtime for the Hurricanes. Thank goodness we don't play at noon. We've had a lot of noon tips. We've had a lot of—one of them was gonna be 1:30 and actually got moved up to noon. Even the Virginia Tech game, I think, was supposed to be--
One of our other games is getting moved. I didn't know that. Which one is that? I think the Stanford game. What time is that game supposed to be? I don't even know. I think it's got tip at 2:15.
That's the last game of the regular season before the ACC tournament.
I've never been—would just move times all everywhere. Move this up 30 minutes, are gonna move this, we're gonna move that.
And Wake Forest got moved, too, because the weather.
Wake Forest because of weather. Like other stuff's just like, "Yeah, we just shuffle your—shuffle cards around the decks," or have some of the cards around.
Yeah, sure. Okay, let's see what we've got. Seven—got a few games before that. Seven o'clock Tuesday against the Tar Heels, seven o'clock Charlottesville, noon South Bend, 7:00 p.m. against Duke, and then to 2:15 potentially? I think.
I don't know. But you have to ask Craig: is it supposed to get moved or not? Yes, he said yes at 2:15.
Sound like a lot of enthusiasm from Craig.
Why would he not be enthused about that?
I don't know. I don't know. Oh, I hope he's—hope he's doing all right. It's good to see him here at The Pit, though. Yeah, great to see him and the fam. The last time he was here, we—no comment. Yeah, okay. Miami coming in. Miami played UNC, got a win last night in the Watsco Center. They're the number one ACC field goal percentage team.
Udeh is the number two rebounder in the ACC right now. They have Pro prospect, really good one, in Malik Reneau down low. He's a big lefty scorer, one of the top scorers in the ACC. I believe he's fifth right now. He is fifth right now in the ACC in scoring. They've attempted the second-fewest threes in the league. They have made the fewest threes in the league.
They are the last in our defense. They hadn't played us yet.
Tre Donaldson—
there they are, licking their chops down in Miami right now.
Yeah. What was your—what's your impression of the Hurricanes with the statistics I just laid out? You touched on it a little bit off the top.
I mean, look, they're big. They're physical. Coach Lucas does a great job. They play to their strengths. They have an identity and they play to their strengths. Their strengths are how tough they are, how physical they are, getting that ball in the paint. Reneau is able to drive it down there with his left hand. Shelton Henderson's able to drive it in there with his right hand.
Big Udeh—he gets a bunch of lobs, bunch of layups, bunch of stuff around the rim. He's really improved his free throw shooting. CY, one of their assistants, has done a great job with him—his free throw shooting. Donaldson's a good player.
They're gonna be big, they're gonna be physical, they're gonna try to punk us. If they watch the film from Louisville, I mean, they're—they're—they're gonna be salivating, ready to come after us. So we're gonna have to be a lot tougher, a lot more physical than we've—you know, than we've been for sure.
Well, I want to ask you this: So Louisville plays a really unique way. They—you mentioned BYU, you mentioned Alabama. Florida State maybe seemed to try to evolve into what they are. Over 33 threes attempted—
They didn’t have to do anything special against us,
Who's that?
Louisville, and they didn’t have to get into their unique way.
You don't think so?
No. We threw up miss layups, flopped around on the floor, and they ran the ball up the court against us. I mean, there's not—there's no strategy of that involved in that.
Well, okay.
You count this—you want to do something fun for your broadcast? Sure, you can have you or Chuckie, maybe Mad Dog can keep the- count. I've never had a team count how many times we fall on the floor in a game. We just fall and flop around like fish on the floor.
It's crazy, but not like it because it kills our transition defense. We just fall on the floor. I showed the clips today. It means you're taking a bad shot because you got poor balance if you end up on the floor. You got a shot because you got poor balance. If we fall on the floor more than any team I've ever seen. Count that as one Saturday. Watch this: we just fall and flail around on the floor.
And you're not talking about diving for balls?
Oh, we don't dive for balls. Which last time you saw us dive for a loose ball? I'm—no, I'm talking about going in there, shooting off one foot, off-balance—boom, land on the floor. Count that. It's embarrassing. Hey, it'll be—it'll be over five.
So my point is we don't have to do anything when they're playing five-on-four because our other guy's laying on the floor. There's one time we had two guys laying on the floor. It's five-on-three.
Really?
Yeah. What do you have to do? We got guys just—just lounging around on the floor?
I'm not conducive to quality.
Are you gonna count that for me on Saturday?
We’ll track it for you
At the postgame I want to know.
We'll track it. We'll track it. It'll be unofficial, but we'll try official. Yeah. I don't know if—
I mean, there's an official stat keeper, right? You don't—you've got—I mean, we're also a little bit busy. A little—a little bit.
How can you be busy? Don't even know players' names!
I mean, I feel like I'm gonna have to run after this, coaches show, I feel—I feel like he's gonna put me on the baseline and run. Which would be fine—
You’d be faster than a few of my guys.
What I was gonna ask--
where were we, oh about their style of play.
It’s threes versus twos. But I'm getting at Miami's: is this, very bullying interior team. Udeh had a bunch of dunks against you.
Get a bunch of offensive rebounds too—the third-best offensive rebounding team the league. That's gonna be a major problem for us.
Yeah, I'm thinking about Siulepa, but I think about a core head with Pittsburgh with—with those two.
Oh, that's what you—must have been our film session. I wasn't—they threw Corhen—we could—we couldn't move Corhen. Corhen was like the Great Wall of China. We couldn't move him, we couldn't move him. They threw Corhen around like he was a rag doll. They just tossed him out of the way on a free-throw block out. Just discarded him to the side, go in there and get the ball.
Told our guys, I said, "Yeah," I said, "we couldn't—we couldn't touch Corhen. We were running scared of him—how physical he was." He's got these guys break us in half.
Yeah. I mean Miami—that was really how Miami, it seemed to me, how they beat UNC. They hammered him at—they went—
Well, they got the offensive rebound off the miss free throw to put the game away, right? They had the free throw—wax to get the—and then he came around off the miss free throw. But yeah, they got there. They got the—they got the offensive rebound to basically salt the game away. So we're gonna have—we're at major issues with that now.
Which player, Coach, has exceeded your expectations the most since you started here? Who's exceeded your expectations the most?
I would say Q and Paul. Those guys have probably exceeded what we thought coming in. I think those guys have both been pretty, pretty consistent. I mean, neither one of them played great on—on Monday, but they've all been very consistent. And it's funny, I was talking to Paul yesterday—we watched film together yesterday and we were together probably 45 minutes, just me and him—and we were joking, about just different stuff.
And he was like, "Coach," yeah, because he had been really good in practice and all that, and he was like, "Coach," before we had—he said, "I've never been more surprised than the night before we scrimmaged Appalachian State when you told me I was starting."
I was like, "You didn't think you're gonna start?" "No, I didn't think I was gonna start." I was like, "Well, you must not have been watching practice for three months!" Like, it was pretty obvious. But I think, he's just—he's still got a real humble way about him.
Very—and look, he's got to get better, obviously, defensively. There's some things we got to get better—I got to get better on some things off the bounce—but he's been—he's been very, very good for us. Q's been better than we could have ever—could have ever expected.
Paul seemed a bit passive last game. Didn't score, was 0-for from the field. That's not typical for someone of his scoring ability.
I don't think he was passive. We couldn't get the ball. They were very, very physical with him. And, once the game kind of—Paul wasn't—Paul needs to be out there with Q. Q is able to get Paul good looks. When Paul's not out there with Q, the quality of his looks just goes way down.
And he—because he got the early foul, we subbed him out. He wasn't out there with Q very much at all. So they were being physical with him. And Q likes the owner to him because he gets an assist. So Q is always looking for him. He's always looking for him, even because he gets an assist with those two. And Paul don't like to dribble it either.
So if they're—they're not gonna be like where he throws in the guys opening, drives it for a layup—you don't like that. You don't get an assist. He wants to talk to the guy that's going to catch and shoot. And so when Paul—when Paul's out there with Q, it helps both. Q's got more driving angles. Then they can—if they help off of—if they help off of Paul, he just kicks it to him for three. If they don't, Q just backs him down and tries to lay it in.
So the short answer is they weren't out there enough together, and they were able to bottle—most teams, like Virginia Tech, did a great job on Paul to start, and then it just—he got going with the transition three and he gets going. And—and we have a couple sets we run for him and he just—he just gets in sync and he gets moving, and we just weren't able to do that at Louisville.
Stretch against some stronger offensive teams these final six games—do you anticipate Terrance Arceneaux seeing an increase in minutes, or do you feel so?
I hope so. He hurt himself in the Louisville game. He hurt his ankle again—ankle and Achilles area again. That's why we pulled him out in the Louisville game. But we need Terrance. Terrance brings an athleticism—he can make some plays and other guys can't make. We need Terrance to really, really help us down the stretch. And so yeah, we need him to play more. And that's a big part of things.
17 minutes against the Cardinals for—for Terrance. Dylan asks, where's Dylan? Where's our guy? Where's our—but there's Dylan back there. Dylan says, "Coming off the Louisville game, how do you plan to adjust to guard someone like a Cam Boozer, so there isn't a repeat Mikel Brown Jr. type game?"
We better worry about guarding Reneau first. Yeah, before we worry about Boozer. But I mean, it's a little bit unique. We let him get going. He's shooting 28% from three coming in. We let him get going because we messed up a switch and he hit a corner three. We had two guys—we messed up a switch, he hits a corner three in front of our bench—that kind of got him the momentum and got him going.
So you can't let a good player like that—a great player like that—you can't let a great player like that see the first one go in so easily. That was our big—that was our big issue. And so that made it—made it a challenge, but we've got to do a better job.
Look, I'm not naive; when—when four or five people have career nights on you, that's a trend. There's some things that you've got to do better. Now, it's not—all of that can we fix right now? Something that's got to be fixed in the offseason. But, we've certainly got to do a better job and-- we're aware, and we will have hopefully better plans moving forward, starting with Reneau on Saturday.
What do you do with a guy like Mikel Brown Jr.? He's, by the way, projected like tops—5, 6, 7 NBA draft pick, who knows?
Shoot. He's gonna go up after playing us. He's—he was really good. I was told his dad after the game, I said, "Can we get the difference to our NIL account where you were gonna go to where you're going now?"
What did he say?
You know what his dad's name is?
No.
Chris Brown.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, we helped him a lot.
What are you doing to a guy who's a premier talent, and Brown's a top-level draft pick—a lottery pick seems to be a lock that way—is going full nuclear? Like, he's just this super hot and seems like can't miss. He was coming down and hitting, 35-footers. What are you gonna—what do you do about that defensively?
It's not that; it's how you let it get going and how you give them the confidence. That's what happens once he gets going like that. You can't stop it; essentially, you can't stop it. You—it's hard to stop it. But it's that you let him get going and how you let him get into that rhythm. That's the problem. That's what the focus is on stopping him.
How are you preparing the team for Saturday and then the big game on Tuesday?
Well, we're not worried about Tuesday yet, so we're worried about Saturday. And we've got a—we're preparing our normal two-day-out prep. We went a little longer in practice today. Went back to doing a little bit closer to how I like to do it than how they like to do it. And you know, hopefully we'll bring a toughness and an edge—an edge—to us on Saturday.
Saturday is a huge game. Saturday is a huge game in terms of us being able to get the double-bye, and so that's a big deal for us, and it's a—it's a—it's a big, big game. And so we need to—we need to put everything we got into Saturday, and then we'll worry about Tuesday after Saturday.
Top four teams get a double-bye. We have fan questions still rolling in here. We need to take a break. I'll do a read. We got to go through the ACC standings here.
We're in fourth right now.
We're in fourth right now. It's Duke, Virginia, Clemson, NC State at 9-3, and then Miami at 8-3 Saturday. Louisville's 8-4, North Carolina 7-4, SMU, Virginia Tech, Cal right now. According to Bracketology, there are eight teams in the dance. There are two more on the bubble. That's ten teams in the mix here in the ACC. We should be able to get 10 in. Virginia Tech and Cal should get in. Cal's had a really nice year; they're at 17 and 8. Did—Ames—
You see that last night? The electricity went out in the game. No, I didn't see that.
You didn't see that?
I didn't see it. I was hanging with my little guy, to be totally honest.
Okay. Yeah, I would jump on you for study—you need to be studying our opponents. But we've already played Syracuse and we don't play Cal. Did you know we don't play Cal?
I was aware.
You know our schedule better than you know our players
I don't know. I barely know the schedule better than some of their names, too.
So the power went out?
Yeah. There's—the power went out, and then—power went out in the dome. They had like a citywide power surge. They were at like a—like one of those camp scoreboards. They were keeping the score on—on the side.
You'd flip the cards—
they weren't flipping the cards; it was electronic—but it was the other—they barely had the lighting enough to play the—to play the game.
They had like a generator at double overtime. I saw double overtime. Kind of wild. That's wild. Wow.
Tre Holloman's impressed me the last four games. He looks comfortable. Can you speak a little on his growing impact on the court?
Yeah, he brings a defensive edge to us that we, quite frankly, don't have from pretty much anybody else. So he does a great job defensively; sets the tone for us defensively. That's what we wanted to get out of him from Michigan State, and he certainly does that.
So he's going to continue to play, and he's been playing well—and very proud. And when he locks in and does what he needs to do defensively, he gets more opportunities offensively, which is what allows him to continue to put up good numbers on the offensive end.
He's had double digits the last two games—hit 16 points, which at the time was an ACC high against the Hokies, and bettered that in that tough one against Louisville.
I'll make you feel a little bit better. So our radio guy at McNeese just texted me. So we did a show like this at McNeese, the POKEcast.
The POKEcast.
Yeah, the POKEcast. The first year, our best player was a kid by the name of Shahada Wells.
Nice. Shahada Wells.
Speaker 1 He was the Conference Player of the Year, Conference Newcomer of the Year, and he should have been Conference Defensive Player of the Year, but they didn't want to give him all three, so they gave the Defensive Player to somebody else. Anyway, the voice is Jim Gazzola.
Okay, I don't think I know—
He just texted me. Because he must be listening or following.
So my point is, you didn't know Jayme Kontuniemi. He would mispronounce Shahada Wells' name—our best player. He would mispronounce his name every week. Every week, he would mispronounce the name. So he just texted me and said, "Why are you so mean to poor radio guys who mispronounce names?" Jim Gazzola.
Shout out to Jim!
Jim Gazzola—
Shout out to my guy, Jim.
Why are you so mean to poor radio guys? So my point is, you mispronounced a bench guy who's redshirting. He couldn't get our freaking starter, who was the best player in the league—best player in the league! He would mess up Shahada's name every week.
I love it. I love it.
Every week. So there you go—try to give you a little encouragement.
Thanks, Coach. Thank you. Says a guy with a last name that's impossible to pronounce—I've got no excuse. No excuse. I'll get it together. Shout out to Jim—thanks to Jim for the text. I love it.
I can't believe he's listening.
I love it—must be a slow night. Hey to Jim! I love it.
I hope the POKEcast is going great. What's tonight? POKEcast was on Wednesdays. Wednesdays. POKEcast was on Wednesdays. I love that. I believe it was a Wednesday.
Coach, who's the funniest guy on the team?" Paul wants to know. What do you think? Is it Jayme Kontuniemi?
No. He's pretty serious. I'd say the guy who's the most playful and funny is Terrance Arceneaux.
Is that right?
Everybody loves Terrance. Yeah, Terrance is always joking, popping around. Everybody—Terrance and I went to dinner last night. We were just talking, and Musa was there. It was me, Terrance, and Musa. And everybody likes—my wife just texted me, "Still mean to Jim a year later."
She used to get mad at me when I would go at Jim a little bit. But anyway, Terrance—everybody loves Terrance. He's just got a great personality to him. He's always smiling. And so he's a really, really good kid.
Text from my wife—“I'm cracking up. Wade is letting you have it."
If you get Terrance on an interview—if you want to get him laughing, if you want to get him absolutely laughing—so every day, we practice, and then we do a half. You've seen us; we do halftime. So every day at halftime, he drinks an apple juice.
Okay.
Just a little apple juice?
Like the little straw? The little thing?
No, come on.
Well, I don't know—
It's not a nursing home! Practice. He drinks the normal apple juice that you unscrew the top. Like a Minute Maid apple juice.
Sure.
So every day, the whole team will always say it, because I'll always be like, "Terrance, don't forget your apple juice! Make sure you drink your apple juice, Terrance!" Like a little kid—"Make sure you get your little apple juice over there, Terrance." So Musa and all of them now say, "Terrance, did you drink your apple juice?" So if you get him on an interview, say, "Terrance, did you drink your apple juice?"
I'll be sure to.
He'll start—
I wonder if I could even—maybe I'll bring him an apple juice post-game or something. I'm not even just saying—I hope he plays well enough where you get to interview him. That'd be great. I would love that.
That'd be awesome. I would love that. I would love that. He's going to have a big game for us. He's been practicing well. He's going to have a big game for us.
He's been—he was great against Boise. He was really, really good way back. Chucky and I, we were trying to get to know the team a little bit early on. You didn't agree?
That's a problem. That was in November. We're in the middle of—I mean, Valentine's Day is Saturday.
It is. It is.
Did you get your wife anything?
Maybe. I haven't thought that far ahead in my life yet. I've got to think about it. Good question, though. I've got a little bit of time on that.
Not a lot.
Not a lot. Got some flowers here, maybe. Let's see. Connor wants to know—
Got you rattled. Come on, man!
I was like, "Wait a minute." He's got a good point on that. "How have you adjusted offensive and defensive rotations to adjust to taller teams in the ACC since we're a smaller team on average?"
Well, there's only so much we can do. We've got to play Musa more at the four some and move Terrance to the three. We've got to adjust some of that so we've got some bigger guys out there, give us a little bit better chance to rebound.
We're going to for sure need to do that on Saturday. I thought Syracuse was our cleanest rotations. Our first two subs were Matt and Musa and got us bigger. And I thought that helped us quite a bit. So there are some things we need to do with that. We've got to be better there.
Final segment here, a couple of minutes left.
We didn't donate very much on Monday. Didn't help our total there.
Didn't help the cause too much there on Monday. Maybe, maybe Saturday against Miami.
Your top four scorers are separated by just eight points on the season, and you haven't had the same leading scorer back-to-back games since the first two of league play. Do you like that you have four guys that are capable of carrying the scoring load, or would you rather have one?
No, I'd rather have one guy that could score every game. We got no consistency. So we have no idea what's gonna be what. No, I'd rather have one stud that could go score every game and do what we need him to do, and then we'll fill in with the rest of them. No, I don't like—I don't like that. I like—I like knowing that we can count on one guy every game, give him the ball, give him space, and he's gonna go score. And I know—that's what I like having. That's what we're used to having.
Now we got all this, you know—but you'll sell it as "we're balanced."
Sure.
To hell with that! Happy to—I won't hear that. I want one guy who can go get us a basket when we need a basket.
Yeah, it's been a bit of a grab bag in that regard. Yeah, night to night. Yeah. Matchup to matchup, maybe? Is that—is that fair to say? Night to night, depending on who's guarding whom and scheme and circumstances.
Oh, I think that has a lot less to do with it than who's in a good mood. And who's feeling good and who—you know, I think that has a lot more to do with it than the matchup and the scheme and that sort of thing. You're being very nice.
Well, you know who else we need to give a shout out to is our great general manager, Andrew Slater. He's here in attendance. Andrew's just—yeah, Andrew's the stud. Andrew's the man. Great to see him.
He's one of my favorite people to talk to, you know, off the record and on the record.
You always feel like he's kind of quizzing you, don't you? He's kind of reading you when he's talking to you.
Maybe. I never really—I don't know. I never thought about it. I never felt like I was on the hot seat with Andrew.
You ask him a question, then he turns the question back on you.
He's an inquisitive fella. Yeah, he's a—he's a curious mind, and he's a great listener. He's fun, fun—really fun to talk to—but great to have him here in attendance. He tweeted something out about your squads and your typical three-point makes annually per game. You're usually around seven or eight a game. You're at 11 here this game. It's higher—or this year, I should say—with this team.
See, but those are all misleading. Those teams that made seven or eight, we also grabbed about 40% of our offensive rebounds. This team makes 11, but grabs about 22% of our offensive rebounds.
And not just because they're making more threes.
Correct. It's based on percentage. Percentage of misses. I didn't say a raw number. I said percentage of the misses.
Got it.
Yeah, I'd rather make seven or eight and grab 40 than make 11 and grab 20.
Got it. Not your preference.
No. Yeah, it's a tough way to live. It's a lot better way to live when you get them offensive rebounds, put them back in, get fouled. Watch Miami. That's what they do. They don't make a bunch of threes, right? Didn't you go over that at the beginning?
The fewest, actually, in the league.
Until they see us. And then—and then they go and grab that thing. Go play volleyball on that backboard.
Yeah, they're a big physical team. They're really, really good. And they've had a big turnaround from last year.
He's done a great job with them. He's done a great job with them. They're playing well. They've got a good identity. They've got a good style of play. So it's gonna be—it's gonna be a very, very challenging game on Saturday.
Yeah, they're 19 and—what is it, 6, I believe?
No, they didn't lose that many, I don't think.
19 and 5, maybe. Yeah.
They've—they've had a really nice stretch here. They've gotten hot here of late. They may be playing their best ball, and they had their best win, probably—
They had their best win, for sure.
