N.C. State head coach Will Wade yells at official Anthony Eades during the first half of N.C. StateÕs exhibition game against South Carolina at the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday Oct. 26, 2025.
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No safety net, no training wheels, no soft landing. Will Wade doesn’t want any of that. He didn’t come to N.C. State to build up to something. He came to N.C. State to build something now. Immediately. Right away. Now.
That’s a bold position for a new coach to take at a program that missed the NCAA tournament a year ago and crashed to 16th in the ACC after an unforgettable run to a long-awaited ACC title and Final Four appearance under his predecessor, Kevin Keatts.
With just one returning player, some time might be necessary to figure out what’s what, even in an era when you can build a team from scratch in the transfer portal. Just look at the disaster Bill Belichick and Mike Lombardi have wrought upon Chapel Hill, entering in a blaze of arrogance and withering in a cloud of humiliation. They brought in 70 new players, failed miserably, and are now belatedly peddling a rebuilding narrative.
Wade brought in eight transfers but, unlike the clowns across the Triangle, has done this before, has a long track record of collegiate success and clearly knows what he’s doing. Which may be why he’s ramping up expectations instead of tamping them down.
“People are going to have to deal with us, and they’re going to have to deal with us a lot sooner than they think, because our team’s a little bit better than I thought,” Wade said. “We got a damn good team, all right? And so people got to deal with us here real quick.”
N.C. State’s Darrion Williams (1) drives around South Carolina’s Myles Stute (10) during an exhibition game on Oct. 26. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
NC State’s ‘damn good’ basketball team
There’s reason to believe he’s right. Texas Tech transfer Darrion Williams was one of the prizes of the portal, voted ACC preseason player of the year before playing a game in the league. (He had 10 points in N.C. State’s first-round win over the Red Raiders in 2024.) Tre Holloman is a veteran of the Tom Izzo school of hard knocks.
Ven-Allen Lubin knows the ACC better than most broadcasters, playing for his third member school and second in the Triangle. Terrance Arceneaux played for a national title with Houston, and brings all the Cougars’ defensive pedigree. Quadir Copeland was a rock for Wade at McNeese State, and Paul McNeil appears poised for a breakthrough sophomore season after choosing to stay at State.
Throw in late international recruit Musa Sagnia, and it’s a lineup with length, depth, experience and versatility, with players who have a combined 549 minutes of NCAA tournament experience, far more than Duke or North Carolina. Which is, of course, always the bar by which N.C. State and its fans would prefer to measure things.
Analytically speaking, it’s a fringe top-25 roster, right there with North Carolina and Virginia behind clear ACC leaders Duke and Louisville. The upside is tremendous. And it may be proof, finally, that N.C. State can actually have nice things.
Will Wade’s stepping straight into the fire
The Wolfpack got the right coach. Wade’s portal-shopping was productive. Expectations are high, which is just how Wade wants it.
After so many years when Wolfpack fans were mocked in the national media for having unrealistic expectations or being trapped in the past — or worse, “running off Herb Sendek for the more popular Sidney Lowe,” as the late Mike Patrick once fantasized — they have a coach whose ambition matches their own.
That was true of Keatts as well, and he got N.C. State places it hadn’t been in a generation, but without sustained success. Wade has resources, experience, talent, expertise and a willingness to embrace the challenge and opportunity N.C. State presents.
“A lot of coaches get up here and bad mouth their team, but we’re damn good,” Wade said. “We’ve got a good team. We’re going to play hard, we’re going to be fast and physical. We’re going to get after you on both ends. We’re going to be the aggressors on both ends. We’re going to play for N.C. State.”
He’s not shying away from any of that. He’s stepping right into the fire, and wasting no time doing it.
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This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM.
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Luke DeCock
The News & Observer
Sports columnist Luke DeCock joined The News & Observer in 2000 and has covered nine Final Fours, the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup win in 2006. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, was the 2020 winner of the National Headliner Award as the country’s top sports columnist and is a three-time North Carolina Sportswriter of the Year.
