Exclusive: How NC State, Will Wade navigated the transfer portal to build inaugural roster

If someone walked into the first-floor conference room inside NC State’s Dail Basketball Center a month ago, dozens of names – likely pushing 100 — on magnets would have adorned the whiteboard on the wall in the back of the room.  For first-year coach Will Wade and the rest of his staff, it was the central meeting place to build their inaugural roster in Raleigh. They had sorted through the more than 2,000 names in the NCAA transfer portal, looking for any player that could make an impact with the Wolfpack. Those they believed fit their mold earned a magnet. From there, it became a recruiting battle. Once NC State picked up its first transfer portal commitment via McNeese guard Alyn Breed, it seemed to unlock the flow of talent into the building.  “It’s been exciting, it’s been fun,” Wade told TheWolfpacker.com in an exclusive 1-on-1 interview Friday morning. “We’ve tried to be deliberate about how we’ve gone about it. We’re not trying to spray bullets everywhere. We’re trying to make sure we’re honed in on a target and we’re hitting it when we’re taking target practice. We’ve been laser-focused on recruiting.” Now, NC State has 10 players on its current roster for the upcoming season, room for three more before games are played this November at the Lenovo Center. But how did the Wolfpack truly find a way to utilize its analytics and relationships as it built a roster from scratch? A process that Wade refined in his two years at McNeese proved to be effective yet again.