'We're playing against standards': A look at NC State coach Will Wade's thinking going into regular season

In NC State’s first true film review of the preseason following a secret-scrimmage victory over Appalachian State earlier this month, Wolfpack coach Will Wade stood in front of his team in the bowels of the Dail Basketball Center and delivered a “colorful” message with what he thought of their play. 

The scrimmage’s scoreboard reflected a successful day on the court, but for Wade, a coach that can list nearly any statistic off the top of his head, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t up to his level of expectation. He knew he needed to find a way to drill that home to his new-look Wolfpack roster, but the lopsided win behind closed doors appeared to let his team get comfortable. 

“I let everybody know what I thought and I didn’t think this was very good and our standards weren’t met,” Wade recalled. “But that seemed to fall on deaf ears because they’re just results-oriented, not process-oriented. So we had a lull where we didn’t practice very well. I thought we were stuck in neutral. We had been moving up the mountain for a while, but we were stuck in neutral. We kind of plateaued a little bit.”

For a team that put together a roster with the intention of finishing inside the top four of the ACC with aspirations of making noise in the NCAA Tournament, that wasn’t a great sign. Wade has standards for his team, and it was yet to reach them. He just had to find a way to drill that home to his squad before the opener. But once the Pack fell behind by 11 with less than eight minutes remaining against South Carolina, winning its public exhibition on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from sophomore guard Paul McNeil in Greensboro last weekend, NC State’s high-end roster appeared to have a new attitude when it came to correcting its mistakes. 

The Gamecocks, which certainly played better than last place in the SEC like the conference’s preseason poll suggested, exploited everything the Mountaineers did. And this time, it almost handed Wade’s team its first loss of the season, albeit an unofficial one. 

NC State’s film session after that close call? It’s safe to say that the Wolfpack was fully locked in to correcting what it needed to ahead of Monday night’s sold-out season opener against NC Central (7 p.m., ACCNX). 

The biggest areas of concern sat within the Wolfpack’s defense as the press wasn’t executed to Wade’s liking in either preseason tilt, while defending in the half-court could be more solid as the team has allowed 11 middle drives a game, he noted. The 42-year-old coach would like that number to be around a half dozen a game, and if it sticks to the 11 or 12 an outing, it will put too much pressure on the Wolfpack’s scheme. 

In addition to that, NC State has emphasized that it needs to defend without fouling, knowing that NC Central will do everything in its power to get to the line. The Eagles, coached by Raleigh-area legend LaVelle Moton, were the 28th-best team in the nation at getting free throw attempts a year ago, doing so on 39.8 percent of their possessions, according to KenPom. 

The Pack has also been focused on improving its assist-to-turnover ratio, which was 26-to-26 in the pair of preseason scrimmages combined — the bench posted two assists to 11 turnovers in that stretch. That didn’t even include the free throw shooting, which was expected to be around 77 percent, but was 66 percent between the two scrimmages. 

While NC State has had plenty to work on this week, Wade was rather cut and dry on his expectations. And if for any reason a player wasn’t understanding of that — or able to reach his standards — the Wolfpack’s demanding yet calculated first-year coach had an easy solution for that. 

“Either you’re going to get this fixed, or you’re going to sit. I’m done playing around,” Wade said he told his team this week. “I had two scrimmages to see what you can do. … You can either get it corrected and do it how we want or your ass can sit down. It’s your decision. I really don’t care. We’ve got other guys that can come in and help us.”

In a way, the areas that NC State has focused on this week are more of a glimpse into Wade’s thinking as a head coach than any. He wanted to grab his team’s attention after the secret scrimmage, but once that didn’t work, he finally got it as the same mistakes showed up again. 

Yes, the Wolfpack won both games. But Wade doesn’t want his team to be focused on what the scoreboard says. Even if it’s in NC State’s favor, that doesn’t change what still needs to be fixed before playing tougher competition — especially in December with preseason No. 20 Auburn, No. 19 Kansas and Ole Miss on the horizon. 

Changing the mindset of being excited about winning and not looking at the issues despite that for some of the Pack’s roster has been Wade’s biggest challenge through the preseason. But the four-time conference champion that has guided three different programs to seven NCAA Tournament appearances, wants his team to play against the program’s standards and not what is reflected on the videoboards at the end of 40 minutes.

“We don’t want to win. We want to dominate,” Wade said. “If you want to dominate, you’ve got to dominate with your discipline. You have to have obsessive attention to detail with what you’re doing. …  We’re playing against standards, not necessarily against a scoreboard.”

NC State didn’t meet those standards in the two preseason games. Since then, NC State’s roster has become more receptive to what he and his staff are preaching to them. The Wolfpack didn’t seem to have the same determination to correct them in the interim, but that has since changed going into the regular season. 

Wade, who is eager to instill a winning culture back into the Wolfpack program, believes that his team is back on track going into the season opener.

“When you get exposed like that, you’ve got a little more urgency and an edge to us,” Wade said. “Hopefully Monday night, you’ll see that we’re closer to the team that we’re capable of being.”