TRANSCRIPT: Will Wade’s Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Exhibition Win Over South Carolina

Head Coach Will Wade met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC State’s 88-86 exhibition win over South Carolina yesterday. Check out the transcript below. The video is above.

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I’m obviously happy to get the win. That was a huge shot by Paul (McNeil Jr.) at the end. Got a lot of work to do, everybody can tell.

We weren’t very aggressive, particularly to start the game. They sliced our defense up. Our press was pretty poor.

So we’ve got a lot of work to do, but appreciate Paul bailing us out there at the end. We did a good job in the six minute game, which is something we work on. We’re down 79-70, and walked it down to win, but we’ve got to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that position.

Their guards were really good, couldn’t stay in front of Meechie (Johnson). We left (Eli) Ellis open at the back end of the press a bunch. They were stacking the side on the press. We were trapping when we shouldn’t trap, and you’ve got to drop back.

That’s been a problem that we’ve seen in practice. We saw it in our first scrimmage. So we obviously haven’t been able to get that fixed, and that’s something we’ve got to get fixed and fixed quickly so teams can’t take advantage of that.

But we’ll get back to work this week, and certainly try to improve.

Are some of those mistakes that just get cleaned up over a period of time, or when scouting reports are very thorough?

We did a pretty good scout on South Carolina. We did probably about 80-90% of what we do in a typical scout on this one.

But some of it’s just playing together, understanding the press, understanding what’s the stack side, what’s the single side, what’s the single side with the shooter, what’s the single side with the non-shooter, because when it’s dudes in the corner, you can’t run. I mean, there’s a lot of different things, and we’ve gone through it.

The back guy has to communicate it, and we just couldn’t get that communication down tonight.

Q (Quadir Copeland) and Tre (Holloman) both talked about the confidence that they have in Paul McNeil Jr. to make that shot. How much confidence did you have that he could hit that?

We called the play for him.

I mean, it was supposed to be a clean look off of a flare down screen, but he made a big time shot. We called the play for him, so we’re pretty confident.

He’s probably the best tough shot maker that we have. He makes a couple of those in practice every day, just about. So, very proud of him, very pleased with him.

He’s grown a lot since last year, and grown a lot since we’ve gotten here. Happy he could have this moment.

You mentioned the last six minutes and how they were able to close it out. What does that say about this team to you? Who’s that guy that’s able to show up when it matters?

You want to be tough. We work on the six minute game. We play those two or three times a week. We spend an inordinate amount of time on that, because you’re going to be in a lot of those, especially when you’re playing other high major teams, or you’re in conference.

So that’s something we spend a lot of time on, so it was good. In our scrimmage, there was no six minute game, because the margin was a little bit different, so this was good to get some of that on film, but we’ve got to focus on what we do to make sure we’re not in those situations. I told our guys, you could never accept in winning what you wouldn’t accept in losing.

You win in the margins, and even though Paul’s shot went in, that doesn’t change the issues that we have. If Paul’s didn’t go in, we’ve still got the same issues.

We also spend a ton of time on closing out the first half. We were pitiful. We picked up an offensive foul, took two points off the board. We gamble for a steal, and then we overrun a play, and we give them two free throws at the end. That was a four point swing. If Paul’s shot didn’t go in, we’d probably like those four points.

We were 19 of 30 at the free throw line. We missed 11 free throws, a couple front ends of one and ones. You can’t shoot 63% from the free throw line and win a lot of games at this level. I’ll give our guys credit for getting to the free throw line 30 times. That’s really good. If Paul’s shot didn’t go in, we’d probably like three or four of those free throws back.

So that’s the sort of stuff we have to be honed in on and focused in on.

Defensively, I thought we were the aggressors for probably 8 of the 32 minutes. Probably the first four minutes, I thought Arceneaux did a great job getting us going, and probably the last four to five minutes, I thought we were the aggressors. The other times, we were on our heels and we were on ice skates out there. They were just picking who they wanted to shoot.

So we need to certainly get some of those things fixed as well.

Obviously, this isn’t Lenovo Center. It’s not the season opener or anything along those lines, but what are your thoughts on the NC State fans?

It was great. Great to have a great crowd. It’s way more full than I thought it would be, and our fans are into it. We appreciate all of them coming and spending their afternoon with us, and can’t wait to see everybody next Monday at Lenovo for the real deal.

We’ve got incredible fans. We’ve got great folks, and it was cool to see everybody here today.

South Carolina was picked to finish last in the SEC. Judging off of what you saw tonight, what makes them better than what the polls might say?

I think they’ve got really good guard play. Last year, they had Murray-Boyles, who was a great player, obviously an NBA player.

I don’t wanna talk poorly, but their guard play wasn’t what it is now. There’s a reason he went and got Meechie Johnson back. There’s a reason Meechie had his career year here when he was with them the year they won the SEC, the year before.

Ellis is obviously a tremendous player. He plays well over his age. (Kobe) Knox is really good in transition. He hit a big corner three for him.

I think their guard play is much improved. I think they shoot the ball well.

Then he’s just got a flotilla of bigs. He can try every big out and see which one’s working that day. Whichever one works, he can play them.

I think they’re going to be a good team. One of the reasons we wanted to scrimmage them is what they do offensively. The way he plays the motion, and some of that stuff, is some of the hardest stuff for us to guard, so I wanted to get that and see how spread we got.

But we need to get better. We need to get better there. We knew that was going to be a challenge coming in, but they do a really, really good job.

What was it like getting to see Q  in a real game, and just what he did for the team?

Everybody feeds off his energy. He understands what it takes to win, and he kept everybody calm.

‘Hey, we’re going to find a way to pull this out. We’re going to find a way to do this.’

Q’s really matured. They get their confidence from him.

He’s calm in those situations. A lot of our guys are as well. So I think that’s something he feeds down to our players.

I thought that helped him quite a bit today.

When you face an elite shooter like Ellis, what’s the key to shutting down that kind of player?

Not leaving him open like we did. I mean, we had three breakdowns at the end of the press.

We over-rotated on a non-shooter one time, and left him open. Once those guys see that first shot go in, and get that first clean look in, it’s tough. Some of those were just straight target practice that any great shooter’s going to make, and he’s a great shooter.

There was some skepticism on whether Eli’s game will actually translate to the Power 4 level?

Who’s skeptical on that?

Anybody who does basketball recruiting ratings, for sure.

Well, no, he’s a good player, but you can’t measure…look, his dad, Jeremy’s a hell of a guy. I’ve known him a long time. That kid’s made of the right stuff.

Look, the basketball skills are one thing, but the moxie, the toughness and the grit and those sort of things. I mean, that’s what you have to have if you’re a smaller guard. If you’re a smaller guard, to make it in a power conference, you’ve got to be able to make shots, and you’ve got to have some grit.

He can make shots, and he’s got grit, so I think he’s going to be just fine.

Darrion Williams, 4-4 in the second half with ten points. How nice is it to have him and Q down the stretch when you get to that sixth minute?

Yeah, we really went to Darrion down the stretch. Look, he’s here for a reason, and we’re going to make sure we put him in the right spots down the stretch, and make sure we put him in the best positions. We really went to him late in the game, and we should have gone to him a little bit earlier, as well.

He had those two fouls in the first half. We played him for a while with two fouls, and we took him out to make sure he didn’t pick up a third before halftime. But he’s going to be a great player for us, and it was good for him to knock some of that rust off. I know he’ll be better moving forward.

Coach, you spoke earlier on how tough it was to even get Musa (Sagnia) here. Just for him to be able to play again in a quote-unquote real game. The players were talking about how much fun he seemed to be having, a smile on his face. From your perspective, what was it like to see him out there?

It was great.

We talked before the game, he said, ‘Coach, six weeks ago, we were in Madrid.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, we were in Madrid, and who’d have thought we’d been here?’ So he said, ‘Now I’m playing college basketball again.’

He’s an awesome kid. He’s why you do it, and why you work hard and spend all those extra hours. He’s appreciative. That’s the #1 thing. He’s appreciative from where he’s been, and what he’s come from.

Any opportunity…he’s appreciative of that. It was great to see him out there, and he’s going to continue to get better. He was a little bit rusty today.

We see a lot better version of that most days, but he was a little bit rusty today, but he’s going to continue to get better.

I think that he’ll be a really, really good player for us this season.

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Box Score

Holloman, Copeland and McNeil Jr.’s Press Conference

Game Write-Up

A Deeper-Look at the Numbers