(Full Press Conference Video at the Bottom of the Page)
NC State head coach Will Wade met with the media following the Wolfpack’s 96-78 road victory over Wake Forest on Saturday afternoon in Winston-Salem. The win pushed NC State to 16-6 overall and 7-2 in ACC play, marking another strong road performance for the Wolfpack.
Below are Wade’s key takeaways from the win, including adjustments for noon tipoffs, offensive efficiency, rotation decisions, and confidence entering the stretch run.
Changing Schedule to be Better Prepared for Noon Games
Well, I really cut back on some of the practice. I mean yesterday, well Thursday first off, I didn’t do morning vitamins and then yesterday, we were literally from the minute we sat down to watch film till the minute we got off the court it was an hour and two minutes, and then this morning I let them sleep in for an extra 45 minutes and we kind of changed our morning of routine so I was just trying to get us fresh.
I thought we got off to a decent start because of it, but you know I was just trying to keep our guys fresh and since the time of the season where everything’s pretty monotonous. The way we do things two days out, one day out, everything’s very monotonous, so if you can break that monotony and give them a little pop. And they responded well so I’m proud of them.
Improvement Offensively Against Wake Forest This Go-Around
We turned the ball over 15 times against them the first time. We turned it over eight today.
Tre (Holloman) three assists, no turnovers. Q (Copeland) had 10 assists…one turnover. I thought those guys were tremendous. You know, it takes a second…we had three turnovers before the first media just adjusting to their hand angles and some of our hook passing, so our guys did a good job adjusting. I felt like we were a lot cleaner with our with our passing today.
Sweeping Wake Forest this Season
Well, I mean we weren’t very good in the first game against Wake. We were very fortunate to win. They missed a lot of open shots. Our offense was pretty poor, so I think you want to continue to get better as the season goes on and hopefully we can continue to get better. We’re at the halfway mark now. I believe we’re seven and two here at the halfway mark so we started with the one over Wake. We ended with the one over Wake, but the back stretch is the back nines…not easy…so we’ve got to continue to improve, continue to get better and continue to do the things that we need to do to allow us to be successful as a team.
But I do think we’re making progress. I mean look, you put 96 points up on the road. That’s hard to do. So, our guys did a good job. 19 assist on 33 made baskets is really good as well.
Paul McNeil Jr. and Darrion Williams’ Early Three’s Set the Tone
Well, look we’re not going to shoot 57 percent. We can’t control how we shoot it every night, but we can control the quality of the shots that we get. I thought our quality of threes…I can think of two or three that were that were pretty poor, but all the rest of our quality of threes I think were pretty good, so you know, I focus on what we can control, which is the quality of our shots and I think that our shot quality was solid today.
Darrion Williams Didn’t Play the Final 11:42 Minutes
Yeah, his Achilles was tight and it was kind of going up to his calf. We could have played him. He was cleared to play, but as long as we had a double-digit lead, there was no need to do anything compromising.
Confidence Level Since the Georgia Tech Loss
I think we found a rhythm. We’ve got a good rhythm. We’ve got a good way about us. Look, every season is going to have its up and downs. As a head coach, it took me a little longer than most years to kind of figure out how to play this group and we had some curveballs. Some of the things weren’t exactly as we maybe thought, and so we found a way. We had to find some ways to play these guy. Very proud of our guys.
I mean see somebody like Terrence Arceneaux played 24 minutes today. Scored nine points, but I mean he’s the only guy we had who could guard Juke Harris, and just the growth he’s had. He didn’t play for two games, and so just really proud of him for sticking with it and keep working.
Tre has struggled in ACC play shooting the ball, and he was four for eight today from the field, three for six from three. I think he’d made maybe four or five threes the entire ACC season.
We’ve still got a lot of room for improvement. Our on-ball defense was horrific today. We tried to trade baskets once we figured out how easy it was going to be to score, and that’s not going to work Tuesday at SMU, but you know, you want to play meaningful games, and we certainly have those on the on the back end of the schedule here.
Continuing to Play a Tighter Rotation
Well, I just think eight guys gives us a chance to have some continuity. It gives us a chance to have some continuity of lineups, and so everybody knows that they’re going to get multiple chances. They’re not going to get pulled on their first mistake. So I just think it relaxes everybody and gives everybody more opportunity for success. This isn’t the permanent lineup. It could change again. Probably will change again. But, it’s working for us now. We’re not going to mess with it too much.
Shutting Down Everyone But Juke Harris
That’s a very nice question Jacey. Saying we’re trying to shut down the Non-Juke scores, and we couldn’t stop Juke. I would I’d like to tell you there was some wonderful strategy behind shutting down all the rest of them, but that was just because he took all those he was taking. He shot 25 balls, which he should have. I mean he played great
Finding Open Corner Three’s Against Wake’s Defense
There were some things with some matchups in the corners that we had looked at on film and felt like we usually have Darrion (Williams) kind of roaming up top. We put him in the corner. We put our shooters in the corner. So there were a few matchup things there.
NC State Fans in Winston-Salem
Our fans were incredible. We had more people here than Wake. We had the Wolfpack chant going. I want to you know the weather here is not great. We’ll make it back to Raleigh, I hope, but I want to thank all our fans who came today. I mean, they were absolutely awesome. Made it much more of a neutral environment than a road environment, so we’re very very appreciative of all of them for coming out in the weather. They were a rowdy group and hopefully they had a good time. So very appreciative of their support.
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