‘Kindergarten is over’: What NC State’s Will Wade said about Wolfpack in rant
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Will Wade criticized team effort, citing defensive lapses and 15 offensive rebounds.
- He demanded urgency and internal leadership to fix execution and focus issues.
- Wade praised McNeil’s 47-point game but slammed team defense and effort.
Paul McNeil was all smiles, individual droplets of water still on his curls, following his historic performance on Wednesday night. The mood dropped drastically when N.C. State coach Will Wade held his press conference minutes later.
It featured far fewer grins and much more yelling, and it felt more like a therapy session for the head coach than a media availability. Wade was angry, disappointed and frustrated after the Wolfpack’s 108-72 win over Texas Southern.
He called McNeil phenomenal. The sophomore scored a career-high 47 points, tied at No. 5 with Sammy Ranzino (1951) for the most points in a single game in NC State program history.
McNeil hit 11 3s, setting a new program record and tying the ACC record for most 3-pointers in a single game. He added 10 rebounds, too. He is the first player, according to the Field of 68, since 2004-05 to have at least 45 points, 10 rebounds and 11 or more 3s in a game.
Most of the compliments stopped there.
“Yeah, [we] give up the amount of points we gave up, the offensive rebounds we gave up,” Wade said, just warming up to what would be yelling for about eight minutes. “Our attention to detail’s lacking, our effort, our intensity on a consistent basis, on every possession, it’s not where it needs to be.”
Wade was infuriated. His disapproval led to an intense rant in which he told reporters, “I’m not mad at y’all.”
“It’s fine. We beat Texas Southern, but that’s why we hadn’t been able to beat Kansas, why we hadn’t been able to beat Auburn, why we hadn’t been able to beat these guys,” Wade said. “It’s because we make those same mistakes in those games and they kill us, and we don’t get it corrected. I’m tired of it. I’m absolutely tired of it.”
When asked how his staff will get the consistency and effort where it needs to be, Wade’s message was clear.
“We’re gonna keep demanding it,” he said. “It’ll break eventually.”
Here’s what Will Wade said after the Wolfpack’s win over Texas Southern
Getting beat in the lane
N.C. State was beat in the paint 38-32. It gave up 15 offensive rebounds, with Troy Hupstead pulling down five and Duane Posey grabbing six for Texas Southern. The Wolfpack defense allowed the Tigers to go 15 of 26 on layups.
“Texas Southern is good. I mean, Posey is tougher than most of the guys we got on our front line,” Wade said. “They’re physical, and we couldn’t guard them one-on-one, but they did a pretty good job guarding us one-on-one, keeping us out of the paint. We couldn’t turn the corner on them, but they were pew pew pew right by us. They just missed a bunch of corner 3s. I mean, they whipped us on the baseline. We changed our ball screen coverage two different times.”
“[With] 1.3 on the shot clock. They run the X play. We get slipped in front of. We went over that eight times in shoot around today. Screwed it up six times, so we had to go over it eight times. Then all of a sudden, boom, lay up. Not prepared on a baseline out of bounds. On the far end in the second half, lay up. That [expletive] gets you beat.”
NC State’s ‘casual’ personalities
“We got a lot of nice guys,” Wade said. “Got lots of nice guys. Got a great team GPA. Over 3.0. Got all that stuff. It’s wonderful. If we’re running a daycare. I am into academics. I was a teacher. I’m happy about the 3.2, but we’re running a competitive basketball program. I’ve been trying to get some urgency and some internal leadership.I think [Quadir Copeland] has done a pretty good job. Outside of Q and Ven [Allen Lubin] — those guys are playing about as well as we can ask them to play — we take on the personality. We got a lot of casual personalities on our team. We don’t have people that are revved up and ready to go.
“I had one of the kids come to me, ‘Oh, I’m tough. I’m tough.’ I said, ‘[Expletive], you’re not in the top 50 of the toughest players I’ve coached. I don’t want to hear that. You ain’t tough.’”
Ongoing, uncorrected mistakes
“Today in our shootaround, we made 88 mistakes,” Wade said. “I chart all of it. We made 23 defensive errors, 13 offensive execution errors. The other ones were different. Our first team made 14, our second team made 22. How the hell can you be on the second team and watch the first team do it and make eight more mistakes? You’re running the same stuff. Casual, lack of attention to detail, lack of focus.”
“That’s great when you have somebody that sets the ACC record for made 3s and the school record for made 3s, but we’re relying on hope that one of these cats is going to go ballistic every night. That’s what we rely on, just hope, and hope’s a bad strategy in my book.”
Wade’s level of concern with where the team is
While NC State (8-4) will carry a winning record into ACC play after Christmas, the Wolfpack has one more chance to beat a non-ACC power conference team. That comes Sunday against Mississippi (7-4) in Greensboro.
Wade warned his team hasn’t shown it’s ready.
“It’s concerning [that] it’s taken this long, and we’re not there,” he said. “We’ve got all major games from here on out. Kindergarten is over. I played some of those kids tonight. I made their Christmas. It’s gonna be miserable for me. I made their Christmas. They got a Christmas present a week early, playing some of these guys. But, I mean, I’ve been concerned for weeks. I’ve been concerned for weeks, but we are who we are. I said it a couple weeks ago. If you’re not physical and you’re not tough, you better be alert and aware. And we’re still none of the four. We’re not physical, we’re not tough, we’re not alert, we’re not aware. If you’re alert and aware, you don’t give up five points on baseline, out of bounds plays with the clock under three seconds. We just don’t do it.”
“It’s beyond concerning. I mean concern’s like here,” Wade held his hand slightly above the table before raising it a foot. “This is a problem, major problem. We’ll see. We got to have some internal leadership. That’s what we got to have. Internal leadership. Got to have urgency. Gonna have intensity. We’ve got to have effort on every possession. We have to dominate possessions, and we just get through possessions. Just hold on for dear life.”
Playing Scottie Ebube over others
A 6-10 senior forward, Scottie Ebube hadn’t played more than six minutes in any game this season before appearing in 13 minutes against Texas Southern. Wade said Ebube earned more playing time.
“Scottie plays with an edge,” Wade said. “I’m the dumbass for not playing him. I should play him more. We got a lot of guys to go in there and are neutral. They’re walking around on eggshells, trying not to do something or whatever. When he’s in there, something’s gonna happen. Somebody’s band is playing. Ours or theirs, but somebody’s playing, something is going to happen. That’s a good thing. We’ve got to put him in around the media [timeouts]. Need to put him in around the medias, 4- to 5-minute spurts. Let him go in there and wreck things up. He played 13 minutes, fouled out tonight. That’s what he does. Made a free throw. He brings a physicality to us. I mean, hey, in the first half, that weak side block he had, that’s the first weak side block we’ve had all year. We just watch them lay it in.”
“Talk about the Kansas game. In the last six minutes of the game, we got out of the way of three shields that should have been blocks. That’s what lost us the game, not all the other stuff. Scottie is the only guy we got that can come from the weak side and make the block off of a shield. We hadn’t done that all year long. Eleven games into the year, haven’t done it. Scottie comes in, boom, like volleyball. Bats that thing all over the place.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
