Will Wade Brings NC State's Red Reckoning to ACC Tipoff

CHARLOTTE — Will Wade and the 'Red Reckoning' for NC State men's basketball are now just weeks away from starting the 2025-26 season. The Wolfpack looks poised for a potential breakout campaign under the new coach.

The road to the ACC Tournament in Charlotte begins in October at ACC Tipoff... also in Charlotte funnily enough. Joined by Texas Tech transfer Darrion Williams and North Carolina transfer Ven-Allen Lubin, Wade took yet another media event by storm.

Before breaking out into smaller groups, Wade participated in a major press conference alongside Lubin and Williams. Find out what he said right here:

Wade Transcript

On NC State competing in his first year at the helm

"I still feel like we're an NCAA Tournament team. I think we're going to get to the NCAA Tournament. As I said, we've got the depth and the experience to make some things happen there. Now, we've got to keep it together throughout the season. There's a lot of ebbs and flows to a season, but I feel really comfortable with our group. I feel really confident in our group. I think we've got great talent. I think we've got great fiber to us on the inside."

"There's nothing I've seen that's going to temper anything that we believe or anything that I believe. I believe we have one of the best teams in this conference, and I believe we have one of the best teams in the country. I think that we will be able to show that throughout the course of the season. By the time we're done playing, everyone will know who Williams is. We won't need a picture."

Oct 8, 2025; Charlotte, NC, USA; NC State head coach Will Wade answers questions from the media at The Hilton Charlotte Uptown. Mandatory Credit: William Howard-Imagn Images | William Howard-Imagn Images

On the ability to add more International Players with new NCAA rules and regulations

"It used to be that you couldn't give a guy a donut. Now, you can go pay their buyout... It's just opened up a new market. Before, a lot of those kids didn't necessarily want to come over here because you couldn't make, money. You couldn't make as much money as you were making over there... Two, you had the amateurism issues."

"So I think it's opened up new markets. And look, when you've got a lot of schools like ours are that are academically oriented. A lot of times those international kids are pretty good students, really good students. You can get them in school... They're very appreciative of the opportunity to be here."

On the 2025-26 roster construction

"Put our team together with an emphasis on being able to win, being able to win in March. We have the most NCAA Tournament minutes of any team in the ACC on our roster. We have six guys on you are on roster that won an NCAA Tournament game last year."

"We have 549 NCAA Tournament minutes played on our roster. That's 200 more than the next closest ACC team. We want to have a team that's prepared to get to March and prepared to win in March, so that's what we feel like we've put together with this group."

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