Can the Wolfpack Respond to Will Wade's Message in Ole Miss Matchup?
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RALEIGH — After his team ran roughshod against Texas Southern, Will Wade sat in front of the media and tried to send a message to both the fan base and his own players that his first team at NC State was not meeting his lofty standards as a head coach.
The clock is ticking for the Wolfpack, as it blew chances to get quality wins during the non-conference slate at every turn. On Sunday, it has one last chance to beat a power conference opponent from outside the ACC. The question is, did Wade's impassioned, and now viral, tirade affect his team, or simply make waves on social media and that's all?
Watch Wade's press conference for context
Will the message get through?
Wade's primary issue with the team stemmed from what he called a lack of internal leadership. Outside of Quadir Copeland and Ven-Allen Lubin, he stated that the team lacked an edge and didn't have anyone from inside the locker room stepping up into a leadership role to try to get more out of this group. Without that internal voice, the effort looked flat at times against TSU and others.
"The attention to detail on that stuff, like that stuff, it's fine, we beat Texas Southern, but that's the sort of stuff that's why we hadn't been able to beat Kansas, or we hadn't been able to beat Auburn, why we hadn't been able to beat these guys," Wade said. "It's because we make those same mistakes in those games and they kill us, and we don't get it corrected. And I'm tired of it. I'm absolutely tired of it."
NC State head coach Will Wade went on a spirited rant about his team’s struggles with correcting issues and attention to detail.
— Tucker Sennett (@SennettTucker) December 18, 2025
Here is part of his postgame press conference following the 108-72 win over Texas Southern @WolfpackOnSI: pic.twitter.com/WPAEiQBak4
Wade's tirade expanded beyond that moment, as he called out the team's "casual" personalities, something he believes needs to change for this group to compete at the level many hoped it would coming into the season. The coach promised to keep trying to get the most out of his players, but his rant seemed more like an effort to get through to the players through the media.
“We’ve got a lot of nice guys, we’ve got a great team GPA, over 3.0 – it’s wonderful… If you’re running a daycare, we’re running a competitive Division I college basketball team,” he said. “I am in academics, I’m a teacher, but we’re running a competitive college basketball program, and I’ve been trying to get some urgency and internal leadership. We’ve got a lot of casual personalities on our team; we don’t have a lot of people who are revved up and ready to go.”
Whether or not Wade's message got through will be made abundantly clear Sunday afternoon. The Wolfpack finishes the non-conference slate with a trip to Greensboro for a tilt against Ole Miss. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 P.M.
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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