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

Updated look at NC State men's basketball quadrant wins, with comparison to the rest of the ACC.

One of the more fun components of the Will Wade offense is the use of Paul McNeil. As we discussed on this week's Lotcast episode , McNeil is a getting a lot of volume simply from being around Quadir Copeland , and his gravity as a floor spacer creates tons of conflict for defenses. That's not the only way he gets shots, though. Today, we're looking at three set pieces that led to Paul McNeil triples. Veer A veer screen is an off-ball screen set by a player who has just set

NC State Quad wins tracker, and the path they need to take to secure a 2026 at-large NCAA tournament bid.

NC State's offense currently ranks 20th nationally in total efficiency, 17th in effective field goal percentage, and despite some regression, is still shooting almost 40% from three as a team. The offense has done a lot of things right to this point, and the Pack is having fun compressing defenses and zipping the ball around the perimeter to its squadron of shooters. Let's hope it continues into conference play. The pieces have fit together well. Even with Darrion Williams st

You’d never know it if you simply measured the sentiment around it, but NC State enters conference play with a top 50 defense. Will Wade’s first Wolfpack team, which was rightfully lambasted for its early defensive efforts, has quietly pieced together a nice four-game stretch to wrap up its out-of-conference slate.  Three of the team’s four highest-rated defensive games per Torvik have come in the last two weeks (Liberty, Kansas, Ole Miss). Over the four-game stretch since 12

Of all the players I wrote about in the offseason, which was almost every one State added in the portal, Quadir Copeland was the one I really got wrong. The senior Will Wade product has been the team’s best player and its primary drink stirrer.  Copeland’s skills as an operator have always been intriguing. He’s an at-the-rim scorer who sparks a lot of ball movement. Playing with ball-dominant foul merchant Judah Mintz at Syracuse didn’t land him in as many on-ball situations,

NC State is now part of a small group that has traveled to Hawaii and not enjoyed itself. The Pack's pass at the Maui Invitational was less pleasant than expected, and while these aren't catastrophic developments or panic button moments, they did expand on some negative trends. Texas scored 102 points behind a 16/32 effort from beyond the arc. Seton Hall was the reverse, ripping off a 65% effort inside the arc despite not lighting the world on fire from three. The Pack's defe