NC State basketball coach Will Wade on roster-building, Pack fit, FBI fallout
Since N.C. State hired Will Wade to replace Kevin Keatts as its men’s basketball coach in March, the 42-year-old has added seven players in the transfer portal, convinced rising sophomore Paul McNeil to remain with the Wolfpack and is working on finalizing next year’s schedule, especially since the ACC just freed up what would have been the 19th and 20th conference games.
The incoming transfers include Qadir Copeland and Alyn Breed from Wade’s previous job at McNeese State, Michigan State guard Tre Holloman, Raleigh native Colt Langdon from Butler, Houston’s Terrance Arceneaux and Florida State’s Jerry Deng. Wade has also added three incoming freshmen and still has four roster spots available.
At his first ACC meetings, Wade sat down with the News & Observer to discuss roster-building, the appeal of the N.C. State job, what he can bring with him from McNeese State (other than two players) and the repercussions from being one of the few people actually punished for being caught up in the ill-fated FBI investigation of college basketball. Some answers have been edited for clarity or length.
On roster building
Q: We’re seven weeks in now, in terms of roster-building, in terms of getting your feet on the ground and your staff built. How did that process go in your mind? And what’s on your agenda now that you’ve gotten through that initial phase?
A: We’re still in that phase. We’ve got to finish the roster off with a couple more pieces and parts. We’re in position, in a good spot, but we’ve still got to finish it off. But certainly once we finish the roster off, then we’ve got three or four more games to (schedule). How we finish the roster off will determine how we finish off our scheduling. Then we’ll shift into underclassmen, recruiting, and the class of ‘26 and the class of ‘27, because we don’t want to be a portal-heavy roster. We’re going to have to be a portal-heavy roster this year, but we really want to get three to four freshmen and keep two or three of those guys and one of them hopefully goes to the NBA. Then you supplement your roster with two or three portal guys every year. It’s a lot more sustainable model than what we’re trying to accomplish right now.
Why he fits NC State, and NC State fits him
Q: What was it about the State job that clicked with you?
A: You know, I was involved with it a while ago when I was at VCU, so I had a pretty good sense of everything, a pretty good feeling because we got pretty far down the path. The last time they sent me all sorts of literature and I was pretty familiar with the job. Basketball, when you’ve been out of it, you get some time to reflect, and a lot of it’s based on fit. It’s got to be the right fit. And look, I mean, I’m pretty self aware. I’m not the right fit everywhere. At probably 90 percent of the schools in this league, I’m not a very good fit, but I do think N.C. State’s one of the schools where it is a fit. I think that was one of the main reasons. One, it’s a fit, and two, it’s a program that you can win at a high level. We’ve proven that we can win at a high level, now we just have to prove that we can win at a high level and sustain that and not have some of those really, really high highs and really low lows. We need to build one of the top four teams in this conference and keep giving ourselves cracks at it. When you do that, you’ll put yourself on a national level, on a national scale, and that’s ultimately what we’re after. I felt like you could do that at N.C. State.
Adapting to the ACC
Q: Of the stuff that worked for you at McNeese State, what translates and what will you have to adapt?
A: What translates is you go get good players. That translates. That translates everywhere. He who has the best athletes is going to win most of the time. If you can coach a lick, you’re gonna win a lot of the time. I think I was able to try some things at McNeese, a little bit more off the radar. We were able to hone in on our analytics models and some of our recruiting models. We were able to change that after a year and that got us a team that ultimately got to the NCAA tournament and won a game. So we were able to kind of beta test some of those things we did. We did some things with our style of play. We changed a little bit of our defensive scheme. So we were able to test some things, and hopefully we’ll be better for it at N.C. State.
On LSU, the FBI and a second chance
Q: You lost your job at LSU because of the FBI investigation. Some people went to jail. They had that whole investigation, press conferences with Federal prosecutors, and only a handful of people ended up getting caught up in it. You were one of them. And then everything just seemed to go back to normal six months later. Do you have any level of frustration about the way that worked out?
A: I got a second chance. I feel frustrated for other people who haven’t gotten a second chance. Lamont Evans is a good friend of mine. His son (Lamont Evans IV) played for me at McNeese, and he’ll be a graduate assistant for me at NC State, and Lamont hasn’t been able to get a second chance. What’s funny is, I didn’t really know Book Richardson that well before all this, and we’ve become very close through this. Book’s an incredible coach, and they’re still messing with him on his show cause. So look, I got a second crack at it, for which I’m very thankful and very appreciative. Some guys have been able to get back in, like Tony Lamb at Washington and Preston Murphy at Alabama, but I’m more disappointed that not everybody’s been able to get a clean slate and a second opportunity. Because, it’s laughable that what was investigated is now legal. Now, at the time it was illegal. So that doesn’t change the fact at the time — I’m not one of these guys, like everybody says, ‘Well, now it’s all legal.’ No, at the time it wasn’t legal. So I want to draw a line there. But why are we still punishing people for things that now, if they did, it would be standard operating procedure for the day? I just wish that there would be some grace shown to others.
Adding Qadir Copeland
Q: One of the new guys that State fans do know is Qadir Copeland, from his time at Syracuse. What was it about him specifically that you wanted to bring him with? Because he definitely plays with some attitude.
A: He’s one of those guys. He’s like me. That’s what I like about him. If he’s with you, you love him. If he’s against you, you hate him. And one of the best things he does is he gives your team confidence. He gives your team a lot of confidence when he’s playing well, gives your group some pop. He’s been through it with me. He understands what we’re about, understands how difficult it’s going to be. I think he’ll be able to translate some of what I say for the rest of the guys. and I think it’ll be beneficial for him and beneficial for our program and the rest of the guys on the team.
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This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 3:13 PM with the headline "NC State basketball coach Will Wade on roster-building, Pack fit, FBI fallout."
