NC State’s Will Wade Joined the Wolfpack Weekly Radio Show Last Night: TRANSCRIPT

NC State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Will Wade joined Matt Chazanow on the Wolfpack Weekly radio show last night. You can read the full transcript below.

__________________________________________________________________________________

MC: Coach, it’s good to see you, buddy.

WW: No minute like the last minute, huh?

MC: Perfect timing. It is all about timing, perfect timing. Coach, congratulations on 1-0 and a 114-66 victory over the Eagles.

WW: Thank you, it was a good night. I thought our team played well. We played a little bit better.

I was worried coming in about our assist to turnover ratio. I think I’ve been pretty concerned about. We were right at 1:1 through those first two scrimmages, and we were 3:1 on Monday night against Central. So I thought that was some real progress, but we certainly played better, and I was proud of that.

I thought we fed off the energy of the crowd. We fed off the energy in the arena, which was really, really fun. It was a great night, and now we’ve got to get to the rest of the schedule now that that game’s over. We’ve got a lot harder games on the horizon here.

MC: We just pulled you off the practice court, and I mean that literally.

WW: Yeah, we were in practice, and we got the soccer 1st round on campus, so there was traffic everywhere. It took us 20 minutes to get off campus.

MC: You nailed it. The billboard just ended, I was just saying hi to everybody. You walk in, headset on, beautiful.

How’d the team respond on the practice court after the win?

WW: Can you hear my voice today?

MC: You got coach voice. Hey, Chucky Brown’s here, by the way. Great to see Chucky. It was so fun working with him for the exhibition and the ball game. Chucky’s the best.

You got coach voice.

WW: Yeah, we had to motivate a little bit today, make sure everybody understood the opportunities that we have in front of us. We have to turn the page and move forward. We’ve got to have a mature and professional approach to what we’re doing, and so try to impart that on the guys.

We need to get back to working on our six-minute game, something we played well against South Carolina. Even though it wasn’t a close game, we lost a six-minute game against Central by three, 14 to 11. We gave up 23 points in the last seven minutes and 20 seconds of that game, and I know we had different personnel in there, but we expect everybody when they come in to perform, and to perform to a certain standard. So I wasn’t real happy about that, so we went to work on the six-minute game today.

We want to have the best plus-minus in the country in the last six minutes of the game. We’re -3 already, so that’s not a very good start. So we spent some time on that.

We still gave up six points at the end of the press. We did some bad stuff there. We didn’t do nearly as much as we did against South Carolina, so we spent some time correcting the back end of the press today as well. Hopefully that stuff will be better.

Then we’re going to play against changing defenses. UAB changes their defense. It’s about 65 percent man, and they mix in some 1-3-1 and some tandem front zones. So we’ve got some work to do there to be prepared against the changing defenses and to flow. Against Central, you can just get a shot after a couple passes. These guys, you have to move the ball and then drive the ball. So we tried to work against that.

We’ve got to shore up some of our defensive rebounding. UAB has been top 20 in the country in offensive rebounding the last four years, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re a little bit cleaner, a little bit better. The defensive glass has got to be a little more physical. There are some things we were able to get away with Monday that we won’t be able to get away with against UAB, and we won’t be able to get away with moving forward when we play a good team. So we’ve got to get a lot of that stuff corrected in a short amount of time.

MC: You kind of beat me to the punch on one of the questions. I was actually debating even asking at all. You won 114-66. The last question I want to ask is what went wrong? This is a ball game where you turned it over, what was it, nine times.  That’s good.

WW: Yeah, that’s pretty good. But, I mean, we had three, Now, see, that’s what you count as turnovers. We had another three of what I call shooting turnovers. You come in there off one foot, take off six feet from the basket, and we could have sat down off two, and kicked it for a wide open three. So we had three more of those. Three of our nine turnovers are on your stat sheet there. We had two throwaways, one with Darrion (Williams), one with Tre (Holloman), where we were trying to pitch the ball ahead. That can’t happen. That cannot happen in a close game. Then we had one where we just put the ball above our head like we’re a middle school team and try to feed the post guy in domino, our zone offense, and that got deflected, a hand-level pass. Those three have got to be cut out. So we watched all three of those, and we’ve been on that.

So, I mean, the turnover number is what it is, but we’ve got to cut the shooting turnovers. We took a terrible layup. We took two terrible mid-range shots. Now, 90% of our shots were three or rim, which is really good. That’s what we want. But on the mid-range that we took, we were two of six, 33%. So we shot it almost 50% from three. I’d rather dribble the ball back and shoot a step-back three than some of those mid-range. So we have to correct some of that stuff.

So all that stuff is within our control and can get better, but, you know, that’s going to be a big point for us moving forward.

Central scored off of a play called Salute where they just ducked us in with number seven, and we didn’t stay on top, and we didn’t knock back. We didn’t do what we were supposed to. We got messed up on some rotations in our horns defense. There’s a lot of stuff like that, and UAB runs the same stuff. They run two of the exact same sets, and if we don’t get that stuff corrected, you’re going to be going against way better personnel doing the same thing. They’re going to whip our tails.

MC: Tails is good.

WW: Yeah, tails works. They’re going to whip our tail if we don’t get any cleaner with that. So there’s a lot of stuff like that, a lot of little things.

You know, we had one guy that was a no-go to the offensive glass. He was going to the offensive glass every time, so he’s got to get back. So we just had some things like that we’ve got to get cleaned up and in a better spot.

MC: I noticed that you were having some civil discourse with some of the officials at some point late in the ballgame, just kind of a professional discussion, if you will. You acquired a technical foul at one point in the game. The conversation continued a little bit. You may recall the moment that I’m thinking of. Actually, I’ve never seen…Quadir Copeland walked over and said, ‘Hey, coach, please quiet down.’ I don’t know if he used the word please or not. He said something along the lines of, ‘Excuse me, kind sir, would you be kind enough to please lower your voice?’ I’m sure that’s what he said. I think that’s what Quadir said. And you did. I’ve never seen a player get his coach to quiet down quite like that. Do you guys have a unique relationship, you and Quadir Copeland?

WW: Yeah. Usually it’s me telling him to shut up. You know, he got to tell me that in that moment. So, no, it was good. But, you know, I was a little frustrated on Musa’s (Sagnia) fifth foul. I mean, look, I’m always going to stand up for our players. We’re not going to sit there and take it. We’re not going to take a backseat to anybody. So part of it was sending a message, stand up for our players, to send a message that, you know, we’re going to play this thing until the end. Just because we’re up however many points, it doesn’t change anything that we do. And then the other part is just to let everybody know that, you know, we’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to be out there, and we’re not just going to let any little stuff go unnoticed, or go to the side. So, you know, it was one of those things in the moment, sometimes you feel like you’ve got to do.

Then they messed up the substitution after that. I don’t think they realized. That’s what I was going crazy about after that. They didn’t know Musa had the five fouls. So they had him out there when they were shooting the technical free throws. I told them they couldn’t even adjudicate the rule properly. If you’re going to do the technical, you’ve got to be able to adjudicate the rule properly. They couldn’t even adjudicate the rule properly.

MC: Quadir’s a loquacious fellow. He’s a talker. You know what I mean? So of all the guys to come over and tell you to calm down a little bit, I thought that was kind of poetic. He also played really efficiently. He didn’t miss a shot.

WW: Yeah, a lot of that was empty calories. That was after we were already up big. I thought Darrion got us off to a good start. But, I mean, a lot of Q’s were empty calories after we were up big. He missed two And-1’s, two opportunities and missed both of those. Missed a couple free throws on the And-1’s. I went ballistic on this today. He had four fouls. He picked up his first foul 92 feet from the basket on just a bonehead play. He picked up his second foul 88 feet from the basket. Those were quick. Terrible fouls. Terrible.

If you’re the point guard, or you want to be the point guard, there’s a difference between being the point guard and playing point guard. They all want to play point guard, because they get the ball in their hands. They get to dribble around and do all that stuff. They don’t want to be a point guard, which requires all the other stuff that comes with it to be a great player and do what you’re supposed to.

But you can’t pick up two fouls. You can’t pick up two fouls that are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Just not very smart. Not very smart. We got to clean those up, and he’s well aware of how I feel about that.

MC: I’ve gleaned that metrics and data are important to you. They have increased in import over the years in college basketball. I did a minor dive on KenPom, and I’m trying to get a sense of what Will Wade basketball is.

WW: Okay. Well, it’s different everywhere. It depends on how good of players you got.

MC: Well, that’s part of my question. So, in 2019, your offensive rating nationally was 12. Your defensive efficiency was 59.  In 2021, your offensive rating nationally was 5. The defense was 124. In 2022, you flipped it.

WW: That’s what happens when you have Cam Thomas.

MC: He’s a good player. He’s a nice player for Brooklyn in the NBA.

2022, your offensive rating flipped. It was 89. Your defense was 6. So, initially, I was doing the dive, and I thought, okay, I guess this is going to be an offensive brand of basketball, and then in 2022, you go to the NCAA tournament, and you inverted that. And at McNeese, they were both dead even. They were right in the 50s each year at McNeese. So, what can I glean from this information as to what your goals are here for NC State basketball this year?

WW: Well, we’d like to be where we were at McNeese, but both of them in the top 20. Okay. I mean, look. To win at a high level, win at an Elite 8…a Final Four level, you have to have a Top-10 offense. Everybody says defense wins championships and all that. It’s BS. The defensive numbers for teams that have won are up and down. They’re all over. But every one of them that wins has a Top-10 offense.

Now, how you get there is different. Like, Florida’s offense was really pretty. Houston’s offense was chuck it off the backboard and go get it. But they’re both still effective because they’re efficient. If you can have a Top-10 offense with a Top-25 defense, you’re going to give yourself a chance. So, that would be the goal.

MC: Top-20 in both of them. I asked Jerry Dang after in the locker room, who’s great, by the way. Jerry’s super fun to talk to. You got a smirk on your face.

WW: No, he’s a good kid. Yeah, he’s great. Jerry’s much more offensive oriented than defensive oriented.

MC: Okay. So, he’s the right guy to ask this question to then. So, we’re in the locker room after the game. You scored 114 points. Won 114 to 66. I asked Jerry afterwards. I didn’t use these exact words, but basically I said, ‘Obviously you want to win by this margin, but.

WW: I actually want to win by more.

MC: That’d be good, too. That’d be good, too. You win 114-66. Is this kind of a taste of what’s to come? Jerry, do you feel like this is an offensive basketball roster? He basically said yes.

WW: What did he say?

MC: We can get the quote for you.

WW: No, I don’t need the full quote.

MC: He basically said, ‘we can really score the ball,’ and I think he feels confident that he can score the ball, but.

WW: He’s ultra confident in that. If you look at our scrimmage, exhibition and this game, we’ve averaged 95. Our effective focal percentage is like 68% in all three games. That’s way up. That dog would hunt. That’d be all right. 95 would be, that might lead the nation, actually. We would be good if we did that. But, you know, we’ll see if we can keep it up. That’d be good.

Q: Other than winning, what can you do/are you doing to get State fans in the arena?

It’s a great crowd. It’s a sellout in the opener. I know it’s hard to fill out because of its size, but attendance has been poor the last few years. For what it’s worth in context, it’s the eighth largest building in college basketball. I think it’s the second largest arena not on campus. I think us and Rupp Arena. You can almost walk from the edge of Kentucky’s campus to Rupp. It’s in downtown Lexington. But I think all the rest of the big ones are actually right on campus.

I think the number one thing you got to do is win. The second, I know the question was besides winning, but I think the second part to that is you have to play a way that people want to come see that’s exciting or that leaves people wondering what’s going to happen. And then I think the third thing is as players and staff, you have to connect to people.People are more likely to come if they feel connected. If you don’t feel connected, you’re not going to come. That was part of the reason we did the Around Raleigh stuff where we went and did the interviews, because I felt like it was a way for our players to connect, because at the end of the day, the fans come for the players. You know, they want to see star players. They want to see good players, but they want to see people who are good people who represent the school the right way, who represent us the right way. And so it felt like doing the Around Raleigh series, we were able to, you know, put a human element to our guys. You know, they are human beings. You know, they play basketball and they’re high-level athletes and they’re great, great, great players, but they’re also, at the end of the day, they’re also people. So I think the more you can put them in that role in front of people, I think is advantageous.

So hopefully a lot of those people feel connected with some of the guys and that leads to more people coming. The number one thing is you got to win. If you don’t win, you can have all that other stuff all you want. If you don’t win, nobody cares. So, I mean, that’s the number one part is to win games. And then the second part is just to have that connection, have good people and make sure the experience is smooth when they get there.

Q: Where you see yourself in ten years?

WW: Hopefully sitting right here.

MC: Love that answer.

WW: Unless they fire me. I don’t plan on it.

MC: That’s not going to happen.

WW: We’ll see. I hope not.

MC: I hope not too. I hope not too.

WW: No, I mean, this has been great. Hopefully, this is just the start on Monday night. Hopefully we got a long run in us.

Q: How important is it to have former players around the program?

WW: It’s very important. Our guys see the banners and they know stuff, but once again, to put the personal touch, the stories behind it, we’ve had different players from every era speak with the team the last month. Reed (Vial) from my staff has done a great job organizing that. We’ve had videos from certain guys. We’ve just had a lot of different things. I think it’s important for our guys to understand how the program was built.

Eddie Biedenbach did a great job speaking to the guys about how we helped form the ACC, and how we moved from the SOCON, and got the teams to join the ACC. I mean, I learned some stuff listening to them.

The first three ACC title banners in our practice facility were all when we kind of joined, you know, we kind of made the league. I wish the league kind of still treated us like we made the league. They’ve got a short memory.

MC:

Is that right?

WW: Yeah, they kind of forgot about all that. We were kind of the original folks behind it all. Interesting. But anyway, I think it’s been great for our players to understand how important it is to a lot of people, how many people are watching and how many people care.

MC: Are you aware of the Press Maravich, Pete Maravich, NC State to LSU?

WW: Oh, yeah.

MC: But also, like, specifically the sound meter. I’ve never been to Baton Rouge. So the sound meter at LSU’s basketball arena…

WW: They didn’t have it when I was there. At some point, they did. They moved arenas. When Maravich was there, they played in what they call the Cow Palace. Okay. It was old. It was the Parker Auditorium.

MC: Well, at some point…

WW: They may have had one in there.

MC: I was told, because Press liked the one in Reynolds. There we go. And so he went to Baton Rouge and, you know, Pete played Broughton and then went to Baton Rouge and liked it. So when the sound meter came out in Lenovo, I thought, I wonder if…

WW: Did you like the sound meter?

MC: I loved it.

WW: I thought it was cool.

MC: I thought it was really fun. I loved the one in Reynolds because it’s like… I mean, Reynolds basically has a museum outside of it. It’s an integral part.

WW: We had to modernize it a little bit. We had to use that NC State engineering degree to get that thing up and moving.

MC: I mean, no bulbs faltered. Like, it worked perfectly.

Q: Is Darrion Williams that dude?

He better be. He better be. He is. We believe in him. He is.

MC: You know, Chucky mentioned off the top. I keep staring at him, so I keep mentioning him. But he did say that Darrion immediately showed himself as a better passer than maybe even Chucky had expected. Like, the way he passed that ball to Lubin at the bucket was really threading the needle. You know, I mean, for a moment, actually.

WW: Put some spin on it.

MC: Did he really put English on it? A little English. I mean, that’s hard to do. He’s a good player.

WW: That’s impressive. 19 points, 8 assists.

MC: Quick, too. Like, 11 quick. And then got the other guys involved.

WW: He’s a good player. He knows what he’s doing. Pretty dominant. I think confirmation.

MC: I think there you go. Confirmation. He is that dude.

Q: Okay, in the NIL landscape, outside of what’s obvious to recruit and retain great players to keep the Pack competitive in the national conversation, what are you going to do as a coach to foster an environment that inspires players to stay?

WW: I think the number one thing is you want your guys to have a great experience. Not every day is going to be perfect, but the overall experience, the amount of time you spend with them as a head coach, the amount of time you spend with them as a player, as my assistants. I met with four of them today, one-on-one, and we watched some film, but then we spent the rest of the time just talking about other stuff that’s going on.

So they have to understand that you care for them, you’re going to invest in them. Then part of it is a player development plan to get them better. They all want to get better.

That’s one of the good parts about getting transfers, is our program’s a little bit different, and they tell some of those other guys, like, ‘Hey, man, if you leave here, it’s not like this everywhere. Like, this is different. It’s not like this.’

We’ve had kids that have come from some really, really good programs, and they’ve told some of our guys, like, ‘Hey, man, it’s not like this. Like, you better appreciate this. You better be thankful for this.’ And, you know, you think the grass is greener, but it’s not always greener. So, you know, I think the way you treat them, the way you’re with them every day, I look at it like, you’re with them every day, so we get to recruit them every day. You know, if they leave, that’s on us, and we haven’t done our job, and something slipped through the cracks, if that’s what happens. But, you know, we don’t spend time worrying on that.

We’ll worry about that at the end of the year. But you treat them right, you put them in good systems, and you can get them better and have a plan for them. Most of the time they’ll stick around.

I can say this, in my coaching career, ever since the transfer portal, we’ve never lost anybody that we didn’t want to lose. I mean, most of the time when we lose them, you know, sometimes you got to nudge them out, and sometimes you got to do what’s best for them. But we’ve never lost, like, a starter that we wanted to bring back or a big-time kid that we’ve wanted to bring back. We’ve never lost one of those.

MC: Wow, love it.

WW: So hopefully we can keep that streak alive.

MC: We were at a charity event together, and you told a great story about expectation setting on the front end of recruiting, with heaven and hell and all that.

WW: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s suitable for radio right now.

MC: But you do think it is important to expectation set on the way in?

WW: Yeah, but you got to set the guardrails, and you got to set the expectations of this is what it is, this is what it’s going to be, and you either like it or you don’t. Sometimes in recruiting, we lost a kid recently because I was too honest with him. I told the kid, this is what it’s going to be. And he had somebody who told him something that was maybe a little bit better for him, but he’s going to go there, and he’ll transfer in a year. He’s going to call and want to come, I’m going to tell him to go kick rocks. You told me everything you need to know about what I need to know about you, you told me that way. So there’s no turning back on that. That’s part of it.

You got to have the guts to be able to stick with what you’re doing and make sure you get guys that are your type guys. If you get the right guys, they’ll stay. I feel like not every kid either is prepared to literally crawl through mud with Navy SEALs in their off-season training. Like, that’s not embraced and not for everybody. It was more fun than it looked.

WW: Reed, he was running from the mud. Yeah, Reed didn’t want to get in that mud. Reed’s a pretty boy. He didn’t want to get in that mud.

MC: Is that right?

WW: I was going to mess his hair up. He didn’t want to get in that mud.

MC: He does have it dialed in.

WW: Oh, he was getting a haircut the day of the game. How about this? Day of the game, I walk out of my office. I was taking Darrion to breakfast. Reed’s office is directly across from mine. It’s like 10 times a day. I’m like, ‘Reed, Reed,’ and Reed just walks in, and we do what we got to do.

So I walk out, and I walk into the front lobby. There’s a freaking barber there.

MC: Wait, a barber – hang on now. There’s a barber in the Dail?

WW: In the Dale. There’s a barber. I’m like, what in the hell is going on? And Reed’s getting his hair cut. Then some of the players are coming up to get their hair cut. And then I come back in, and Nick Flory’s getting his hair cut. And I said, ‘What in the world?’ He’s like, ‘Reed, this is how Reed is.’ He’s like, ‘Well, coach, you know, the guys all go to the barber on game day. I thought I’d just bring them here and keep it a little thing.’

I was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense to me.’

MC: Okay, well, I got to ask. Did you have a little moment where you went like, ‘All right, I’ll sit down for a haircut too?

WW: No, I did not.

MC: Well, the guys looked great on game day, and they played well, so maybe there’s something to it.

WW: All right, you can stop now.

MC: I’m just saying.

WW: When I walked out, you imagine like I’m walking out. I see the barber. I’m like, ‘Who are you? What’s going on? You didn’t expect – And I look in the chair, and it’s Reed.

I love it. I guess Reed went first, so if the guy was no good, it was only his that was messed up. I guess everybody else would have been all right.

MC: Did the guy bring a special chair? Was there like a whole setup?

WW: No, I don’t think there was a chair. I think he just sat you down.

MC: You are taking on, in a very unique storyline here, I wonder how many Pack fans remember or know that the head coach of the University of Alabama Birmingham Blazer basketball team was a teammate of Chucky Browns in 1987 here at NC State, and transferred to UAB.

WW: Let me ask you this. Can I ask you a trivia question?

MC: I’ll do my best. I make no promises. But I’ll do my best.

WW: So, I’ve known AK a long time. Okay. So, my assistant Bill, who’s the head coach at McNeese, worked for AK for 12 years. Okay. I’ve known AK forever. Okay. When he chose NC State, what was his other finalist who he chose it over?

MC: That I won’t know. I won’t. I don’t know him well enough to know. In 87, I mean, in fairness, I was three.

WW: Mississippi State.

MC: Is that right?

WW: Mississippi State thought they had him.

MC: And then he goes to coach Ole Miss.

WW: Mississippi State thought they had him.

MC: I was in a hotel gym.

WW: Chucky was probably the host on the visit. He got that thing done.

MC: UAB. We don’t have a ton of time. They beat Mississippi Valley State 106-55.

We tip off at 9 o’clock on Friday. Andy Kennedy. Former NC State player. Which is surprising.

They have won the 11th most games in the country.

WW: 125 games over the last 5 years.

MC: They’re the 11th winningest program in America.

WW: They’ve played 4 straight years in their conference title game. They’ve won it twice. And gone to the NIT twice. So, I mean, look, this is the equivalent of playing a bottom end ACC team…Middle to bottom ACC team. Like this is going to be a Quad 2 game. This is why we scheduled it. So, this is a big step up for us.

We’re going to have to keep them off the offensive class. They were Top-10 in the country last year in transition scoring. So we’re going to have to value the ball. Handle the ball. Not give them easy points in transition. So, it’ll be a big test for us. They’ve got good guard play. They’ve got 3 or 4 bigs. They just rotate through. A lot of transfers. One of their bigs transferred from Georgia, and a guard who transferred from DePaul. Another guard who transferred from Mercer. A kid from Nebraska. They’ve got guys from everywhere.

KyeRon Lindsey was a teammate of Darrion’s in Lubbock for like a year in 23-24.

WW: That’s correct. Chance Westry actually committed to me at LSU, before he went to Auburn. Then he went to Syracuse, now he’s there. A lot like Q.

Rivera’s a good player. He was at UMASS. He’s tough.

It will be a big test for us and we’re excited for the opportunity.