Wade Airs Out Frustrations With NC State's Recent Play
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RALEIGH — NC State began the Will Wade era with four-straight wins in the Lenovo Center before a disappointing trip to the Maui Invitational and a loss to No. 20 Auburn in the ACC/SEC Challenge halted the early-season momentum.
Wade continually discussed his team's inability to play with an edge during those losses and appeared to reach a boiling point before Saturday's game against UNC Asheville. Wade joined Matt Chazanow of Wolfpack Radio before the Pack took the floor against the Bulldogs and unloaded much of the reasoning behind his issues with the team, as well as how he dealt with them.
What Wade said
Chazanow asked Wade directly how the coach planned on addressing his team's lack of an edge, something he mentioned after the Texas and Auburn losses. Wade proceeded to give a lengthy answer, lasting about five minutes, before finally wrapping up. The first-year NC State head coach began by laying out his change in coaching philosophy.
"We had terrible practices leading up to Auburn. That's the least confident I've ever been going into a game. We were hoping something good would happen for us, something fortuitous would happen to us," Wade said. "But this game? We had a heck of a film session on Thursday, we practiced well yesterday. We practiced this morning on game day; we were in here at 7:15 a.m. to practice. I feel like we're at least going to play harder, tougher."
Wade and the Wolfpack coaching staff's analytical approach has been a major talking point over the last few weeks after the head coach was asked point-blank about the team's unique 3-point defensive strategy. He walked back some of that commentary after the defense unraveled in Maui, but he pointed out that some of the data proved his team wasn't playing to his standards.
"If you look at the data, Auburn cut 15% harder than we did. They covered the court 16 more times than we did. They just played harder than we did. It was very glaring for our players to see it," Wade said. "I watched the entire game with them on Thursday. We watched every bounce and we were in there a long, long time. Everybody's got to see it."
The in-depth review of the film, coupled with a grueling practice schedule, caused Wade to make some drastic changes, particularly against UNC Asheville. He swapped starting guard Paul McNeil with reserve center Scottie Ebube. The latter played a little over 90 seconds, but it seemed to be a larger indicator that McNeil was the subject of some of the ire of his head coach.
"We're going to give some of these guys an opportunity. Some of these guys sitting on the bench are going, 'Why the hell are they playing? I could do that. I can get out there, get beat defensively and throw up bricks.' I agree with them. Everything's open," the coach said.
The struggles caused Wade to take a more direct approach with his team, as he indicated with the lengthy film study. He explained how things would go from this point on, no matter what outside influences might think.
"I've tried to give our guys some patience to work all this out, but the last couple of days this has been what you would call a hostile takeover," Wade said. "I know how to do it, and we've done it everywhere we've been, and we're going to do it here. This is a process. We've just begun, but hopefully you'll see a team that gets on some loose balls."
Wade's team responded somewhat successfully, beating UNC Asheville 75-63 in Saturday's game back at the Lenovo Center. The Wolfpack used 11 different players in the first nine minutes of the victory, signaling Wade's promise to experiment with who he believed would play the hardest was not just empty words in a radio interview. He went all in and the "hostile takeover" was underway.
"I tried to let it self-correct, but sometimes you've got to step in. That's my job. I don't care about being liked. I don't care about how everybody feels. I'm not into any type of that," Wade said before the win. "I don't like the taste of food after we lose. I want my damn pizza to taste better after the game. That's all I'm worried about, and that's how hopefully we'll play today."
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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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