Good news, everyone! NC State has confirmed two more members of its backcourt with the addition of Darius Adams and the readdition of Paul McNeil. Adams is a former five-star recruit and McDonald’s All-American who escaped Maryland after his freshman season. He suffered a hand injury shortly before the start of the year, returned in full before the season opener, and then proceeded to post some pretty gruesome numbers over the course of that season. As a freshman, Adams shot

Justin Gainey continues to surprise with his first portal class. As a successful defensive coordinator who thrived off long, athletic rosters, Gainey’s early scores have actually leaned hard toward the offensive end. This is a trend that stayed true with the recent addition of Washington State transfer Eemeli Yalaho. I appreciate the importance that Gainey has placed on spacing. State could stand to get bigger from a year ago, but it shouldn’t overcorrect there to the point

Justin Gainey’s first portal class started with a heavy dose of backcourt action. The Pack added Christian Hammond and Preston Edmead, and it continues to pursue Paul McNeil. I’ll admit, the player profile is different than I expected to see. State has overindexed on offensive skillset to this point with these guards. If it can add McNeil back, it will have some serious spacing and shot-making juice. None of these guys are great defenders, though. The early acquisitions and t

In this video feature, we look at Edmead's impressive ability to shoot off the dribble and how it changes the equation for defenses considering how to cover NC State's ball screens.

NC State's backcourt continues to take shape with the addition of Hofstra guard Preston Edmead. Edmead is a lightning bolt, standing at 6'0 tall on a good day and boasting one of the more entertaining highlight reels in college basketball. He figures to be State's primary creator, and the things he did as a just a freshman combined with the remaining room for growth makes him an exciting addition. Edmead’s most outstanding trait is his shooting. He shot 39% from three as a fr

Justin Gainey is on the transfer portal board for the first time as NC State’s head coach with the commitment of Christian Hammond. Hammond comes from Santa Clara, where he averaged 15 points as a sophomore and was a meaningful part of its run to the NCAA Tournament. Hammond is a textbook example of a player who had to develop a strong skill set to be competitive because he doesn’t have a deep well of athleticism to lean on. I would say he accomplished this, as he was first-

We're about to go full steam ahead into covering the transfer portal, but before we get there, I wanted to go a little deeper into some of the tape of Justin Gainey's defense. Gainey brings with him a lot of question marks, but the two sure things about him are that he's a good cultural and he can coach some defense. It's been discussed at length how Justin Gainey's defense guards the ball. If you can't guard, you can't play, as the man himself has said. The most fundamental

NC State has named its next men’s basketball coach just days after being ghosted by Will Wade’s traveling circus. Welcome home, Justin Gainey. The Tennessee assistant and former Wolfpack guard became the top target following Josh Schertz's decision to pass on the job, and what could have been one year ago is now real. Gainey was not my first choice, nor was he NC State's from the sounds of it, but the Wolfpack can win with him if the NIL support is there. He is a high-end rec

Short of the run to the Final Four, I cannot remember a basketball season that had this many . . . gestures wildly . . . things. State was great, but then it stunk, but then it was great, but then it stunk again. The absence of any consistency was the team's defining trait. The Pack went through a ton of changes during the year to try and pin down that consistency. From its leadership to its usage of certain guys to its defensive scheme, it spent a lot of the year looking to

While debates will rage about the first season of Will Wade at NC State, many of which may hinge on what happens in the tournament, there is no denying that Wade's first offense was a potent product. At the time of this writing (ahead of the Texas matchup in the NCAA Tournament), NC State has a top 20 offense that ranks 36th in effective field goal percentage and is still top 10 in three-point percentage. Despite some unexpected shifts in the value of specific players, this g

Quad Games and Wins Tracker for NC State men's basketball's 2026 season.

Every time NC State played good defense this season, I convinced myself that if it could capture whatever created that urgency, State could be an elite team. Maybe this was true. Maybe it was not. It appears that we'll never know. Over the last six games, NC State has allowed its opponents to shoot 65% from inside the arc. That's almost a passing grade in a high school class. From three, that number is 38%, which is way too high, and that includes Miami's 3/17 effort and the

NC State played a nearly complete game against UNC, defending generally well in the halfcourt, scoring in a variety of ways through different initiators, and finding counters to UNC's defensive scheme. Copeland controlling the game was not a surprise, but the Pack hit on interesting things in this one. It shot 44 twos to 20 threes, it second-most lopsided distribution of the season in that direction, and that was a product of taking what was given to it and maximizing it. Let

Quad Games and Wins Tracker for NC State men's basketball's 2026 season.

The goals for the Will Wade era in Raleigh extend far beyond beating some decent UNC teams, but for a myriad of reasons that started piling up in the offseason, he really needed to win this game. Wade’s, um, unique persona has obvious appeal to a program that has spent a lot of its recent existence feeling like it’s been discarded by the sport’s power brokers. State used to be the premier program in the state. I don’t need to rehash Valvano’s downfall, UNC’s decades-long che

Quad Games and Wins Tracker for NC State men's basketball's 2026 season.

NC State's 84-83 win over SMU is immediately one of my favorite basketball games in recent memory. The shot making from both teams hit an extreme, and there isn't much more entertaining than watching your team get on an absolute heater and beat a good team on the road. Because I'm a huge nerd, a number of adjustments and key schematic wins stood out from the second half rally and eventual close. Let's take a look at a key defensive adjustment and two key offensive sets that h

NC State is on a four-game winning streak and is off to its best start in conference play since 2003. It hasn't been a consistent ride or one free of strife. The enormous expectations this team carried didn't necessarily help that, but State continues to be an efficient offensive unit that is doing enough to win almost every game it's in. All of the Wolfpack's goals are still very much in tact because it has the right pieces. What wins basketball games? Coaches coaching? Play

Quad Games and Wins Tracker for NC State men's basketball's 2026 season.

Will Wade’s first NC State team is defined by how hard it is to define. Variance is the term of the year for Wolfpack basketball, both as an input from State's opponents and an output from the Pack itself. NC State held Liberty and Wake Forest to their lowest offensive efficiency outputs of the entire season. Ole Miss posted its second-worst effort against the Pack. At the same time, Boston College and Texas have both had their best offensive efforts of the entire season aga