Wade Offers Temperature Check For NC State After Road Trip

RALEIGH — NC State hit the road after an ugly conference home loss to Virginia and looked like a different team. The Wolfpack won a gritty game in a bizarre environment at Boston College and followed that up with a 113-69 drubbing of Florida State in Tallahassee on Saturday. The two victories helped the team regain some of its early-season form while addressing issues from that period, too.

Wolfpack coach Will Wade spoke to members of the media on Monday while his team took the day off following the dominant win over FSU. Wade hit the recruiting trail during a unique off week in the ACC schedule for NC State, but remained pleased with his team's trajectory after a tricky run through late November and December.

What did Wade have to say?

As was the case during the road trip, the resurgent play of NC State star forward Darrion Williams was a major talking point for Wade. Williams scored over 20 points in both of the wins, taking on a new role as the team's backup point guard. His ability to slow the game down and take a different approach compared to Quadir Copeland helped the offense greatly on the road.

"I think it's been helpful. It's been good to see him be aggressive. It forces him to have the ball and forces him to be more aggressive," Wade said of Williams' new role. "That's what we expect from him. That's what we want him to do. And I think it's helped both him and our team, just like we thought it would... Our job as coaches and my job as a coach is to step in and make sure that we balance that out a little bit better and make sure that Darrion gets the ball like (Copeland) does."

While Wade has had moments where he's come to his team's defense somewhat passionately, he's also been incredibly tough on them when it comes to areas of improvement. The Wolfpack coach once again downplayed his team's progress, but did point to an area of statistical growth that surprised him through the first two months of his first year in Raleigh.

"I was very worried about our defensive rebounding and we're Top 25 in the country in defensive rebounding rate," Wade said. "So, that was something I did not anticipate, so I'm pleased with that compared to where I thought we may be."

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