What Will Wade Said After NC State Beat Pittsburgh
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PITTSBURGH — NC State pushed its ACC road record to a perfect 4-0 in the first season under the leadership of Will Wade with Saturday's 81-72 win over the Pittsburgh Panthers. It took a major second-half turnaround for the Wolfpack to overcome a significant disadvantage in rebounding the basketball, but the team dug deep and found a way with some quality adjustments.
Wade was pleased that his team pulled the win out, especially given the bizarre circumstances of traveling to and from Pittsburgh before the winter weather hit both the Steel City and Raleigh. However, the slow starts remained concerning to the coach, even as his team pulled through it.
Wade's thoughts on the win
With Darrion Williams dealing with foul trouble through most of the game, the Wolfpack's usual offensive strategy needed to be substituted for another plan. NC State turned the offensive reins over to Quadir Copeland, a concept that proved problematic in games earlier in the season. However, timely adjustments worked for the Pack and ultimately led to the victory.
"I thought we did a good job getting some better mismatches, getting the ball downhill," Wade said. "We figured out something against the way they were covering our porch action, which got Paul (McNeil) loose from the three and got (Quadir Copeland) going downhill. Then, they adjusted on that and we were able to go back to something else that worked earlier in the game."
Copeland scored a team-high 20 points, taking 11 shots. That moved NC State's record to 3-5 in games where he's taken 10 or more shots and was the second such performance in a row for the Wolfpack. After he shot the ball 17 times in the Georgia Tech loss, the veteran guard's decision-making improved during the week. As a team, the Pack consistently made the right calls in crunchtime.
"Give our guys credit. We had to do a lot of different things on the fly today and our guys were really good," Wade said. "We got off to a really slow start. You know, quite frankly, not the effort that we would like, but we're never going to apologize for winning and there's a little bit more luck involved in this than we would like... We'll take the win."
Free throws were a major difference in the game for NC State. The Wolfpack buried 22 of its 27 shots from the charity stripe, while Pitt shot a dismal 44% from the free-throw line.
"Thank god. Thank goodness they didn't shoot it well," Wade said. "We did shoot it well, so it was good for us. That was what we needed."
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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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