Head Coach Will Wade met with the media following NC State’s 88-68 victory over Syracuse on Wednesday night at the Lenovo Center. The win pushed the Wolfpack to 6-2 in ACC play, marking the program’s best conference start in 20 years.
Wade touched on everything from the game itself to his recent comments regarding NC State branding, while also breaking down strong performances from Quadir Copeland, Darrion Williams, and the team’s frontcourt.
Below is the full transcript from Wade’s postgame press conference.
Opening Statement
All right, before we get into the game tonight, I want to address my comments on our retro uniforms and logo usage. I never intended for this to get out of hand, but I appreciate our fans. Our fans are incredible. Their energy…their passion…there’s nothing like it in college athletics and college basketball. But the attacks on our strategic brand management staff, there’s no place for that. These people are doing their jobs. I apologize. I texted every one of them and apologized privately. I’m apologizing publicly now. But we need to stop. This is their job. Whatever anybody thinks, this is their job, and it’s our job to do what’s best for the university, and what’s best for the university is our Tuffy logo and moving forward with that.
So I urge our fans. These folks are good folks, hardworking folks who are doing their job, and we don’t need to attack anybody. If you want to attack somebody, attack me for starting this and saying something that I didn’t realize was going to do all that. Set this off. But these are hardworking, good folks. They don’t need to be dealing with this. They don’t need to be dealing with this. They’ve been great to work with. They’ve worked with us on many other issues, and they’ve been very, very good to work with. So they’re great partners with us on campus, and we don’t need that. We don’t need that. These folks work extremely hard and want to advance NC State just like all of us do.
So, like I said, I appreciate our fans’ passion. I appreciate just how passionate they are about everything. But we’ve got to stop this. These are people. These are human beings that are doing their job. All right? They’re doing their job. So let’s put a stop to that, and let’s move forward with NC State and keep winning some basketball games.
Quadir Copeland’s Performance
Better than I expected. So it was good. Stayed under emotional control for the most part. Nine assists, 19 points, four turnovers. A little sloppy with the ball, but the four steals. Did a great job. We talked every day. I’m very proud of him.
Darrion Williams Performance
I thought it was good. I thought him getting off to the quick start with the five points, a few too many turnovers, but I thought him getting off to the quick start helped us.
The threes are the threes. He was 5 and 9 from 3, whatever. He makes them some days, he doesn’t. But I thought his finishing was better. He was way more physical around the basket. I’ve been on him about, you know, if you miss layups, you’ve got to put layups high on the backboard. Our whole team, it’s not just him. We just throw these layups, we miss them on the underside of the rim, which is just, we hit the flange. I mean, we do all sorts of terrible stuff on layups. And so we’ve been working on getting our layups up, and I thought he hit first and got them higher on the backboard. I was really pleased with that today.
Darrion talked about he got a call from a family member telling him he was playing soft for the first part of the season, and tonight he seemed noticeably physical, like you’re saying.
We planted that call.
I was just going to ask, is that something that you guys have been working with him on in practice? He just looked different tonight. He was initiating contact.
Darrion don’t like that pad. We’ve been hitting with that pad. We kind of let him do stuff against the air before. Sometimes you’ve got to touch him up a little bit with that pad, get him to feel that pad a little bit. So we’re trying to put that pad on him.
Best ACC Start in 20 Years
My thoughts are we should be 7-1, so I’m not real pleased with 6-2. We should be 7-1, not 6-2. I mean, I guess it’s good. I guess that’s something you guys can write about. But I’m not very pleased with where we are. I think we should be better than we are. But, you know, I guess 6-2 beats 5-3.
But, you know, the Georgia Tech game just still makes me pretty upset. But, look, 6-2 is not bad, I guess. I strive for a little bit higher and better than that. And Virginia just whipped us. We weren’t beating Virginia. They just whipped us. But the Georgia Tech game is a game we could have won. We had a big lead in the second half, 9-point lead in the second half, and blew it. So we want to be better than that.
Rebounding and Playing Better at Home
I thought we were better. We flew back from Pittsburgh. We went straight to a hotel. We were in a hotel all day Sunday and Monday with the team Saturday night and Sunday night, and then we came over here Monday and practiced. We couldn’t really – we did everything in a ballroom on Sunday. So I was proud of our guys for how they adjusted. I appreciate our administration, compliance, everybody working together to make all that happen.
But, you know, I told our guys, we owe it to our fans, man. These people pay a lot of money to park, tickets, seats, all that sort of stuff. We’ve been terrible at home. So, you know, we owe it to at least play with some effort and play well for these folks. So we played with a little bit more of an edge tonight. I thought that was good.
You know, 15 offensive rebounds, pretty good for our bunch. We turned it over 11 times. We’ve been keeping our turnovers in the single digits. Turn it over 11 times, you’re going to need to make up some of those possessions with some offensive rebounds. So, you know, that was progress tonight. I thought, you know, Ven (Allen Lubin) with five offensive rebounds. Tre (Holloman) had three. Musa (Sagnia) had three. Terrance (Arceneaux) came in, gave us two.
Musa had a career high in points tonight, followed his best practice of the year yesterday, proud of him. Matt Able had his career high in rebounds, which was good. So a lot of good stuff from those guys.
What Musa’s Performance Means for the Frontcourt
Well, our frontcourt was, I believe 13 for 14 from the field, so Musa’s getting better. You know, it just takes some time to adjust. And like I said, he had his best practice yesterday, had a great workout this morning at 9 with Coach Howard. And, you know, I think that he’s going to continue to improve, continue to get better.
Our metrics say we’ve got to play him more, so we’ve been trying to do that. We didn’t get to play him as much as we wanted at Pittsburgh because he got into foul trouble, but we need to play him more.
Are you surprised by some of the scrutiny and attention that comes with this position?
I mean, look, I said something I shouldn’t have said. I didn’t realize what a hot button issue it was. Look, I’m learning too. And so it’s a learning process for me. And I feel bad that, you know, there’s innocent people that were affected by my comments. We’ve got great fans and our fans care. That’s the main thing, and we’d rather them care than not care. You know, the last thing you want is apathetic fans. So we certainly do not have apathetic fans. I’ve learned that. That’s good.
But, look, I mean, train it at me. I make a lot of money. Some of these folks we’re going after… you know, train it at me. You know, I can take it. I’ve been through a lot worse. I’ve had a lot of bad stuff written about me, which is fine. I’m cool with it. But, look, that’s part of it. You know, I probably need to adjust a little bit. Maybe not be as forthright in all my thoughts. Give some truth, but maybe not the whole truth about that. Won’t be as much fun for you guys, but keep us calm.
I thought Craig was going to have to get a drink before he came to the press conference. He was searching for a drink in the coach’s locker room there.
Defensive Rebounding was a Struggle in the 1st Half
Yeah, it was better. You know, our guards rebounded down better. You know, Matt getting six defensive rebounds was huge. Darrion had some big rebounds. Terrance, I’m telling you, Terrance played 15, 16 minutes tonight. Terrance made a huge impact for us on both ends. Especially defensively, you know, with his activity. He was guarding the ball. We did a good job kind of wearing (Naithan) George out a little bit. They didn’t play him as much in the second half because we were picking him up full court, and Terrance did a great job with that.
But, look, our defensive rebounding was better, but something we’re going to have to get fixed.
Recruiting Players with Professional Experience Overseas
Wow, you’re testing me quickly here, huh? He’s testing me right after your question.
I mean, look, if they’re eligible and somebody says they’re eligible, you can play them. That’s my take on it, and I think people are up in arms because, some of this is G-League and NBA guys. A lot of these Europeans that have been coming over are way more pros than some of these G League and NBA guys. They’ve played way more professional basketball than that. So it’s just a matter of what we understand and what we don’t understand.
But, I mean, look, any coach is going to do what they need to do. It’s my obligation to make NC State basketball the best we can make it, however we need to do that, it’s my obligation within the rules. And if it’s within the rules, people are going to do it. I mean, shoot, Alabama raised their ceiling dramatically by getting him, dramatically. That was their one weak point, defense and rebounding, and they raised their ceiling. I mean, any coach in the country would do the same thing.
