Learnings from Will Wade's First Three Games

Making shots is very important in basketball. Fortunately, this is something NC State has been excellent at through three games. Wade's first offense has started off blazing, shooting over 44% from three and almost 70% on twos. The three-point percentage is particularly impressive considering the volume. State has shot 102 threes so far while averaging 15 makes per game. This level of shooting is obviously not sustainable, but State is pretty demonstrably a team that you won't be able to pack the paint against.

Four starters shooting over 45% from three has forced early opponents to guard every inch of the floor. McNeil and Williams have basically been foregone conclusions on catch and shoots. Holloman and Able are both off to good starts. Even Quadir Copeland, a historically awful shooter, is putting them down. Defenses have a vested interest in him shooting threes, and he has been opportunistic adjusting to that. The McNeese transfer hasn’t forced anything. He’s taken the allowance and pocketed it. Copeland actually hasn’t missed a three that wasn’t blocked yet. 

Copeland has been one of the leading storylines. I did not expect him to have this big of a role. Holloman figured to be more of the primary pick-and-roll operator, but he unfortunately got ejected from the one game where State was able to run a lot of pick and roll. Copeland has given State five really good halves. He was bad in the first half against UAB, but his numbers outside of that half have been excellent. In the second half against Greensboro, I thought he made great decisions on when to attack. He looks like more of a well-rounded player than he ever has.

The knock on Copeland’s game, outside of his jumpshot, was his tendency to play out of control. He had an extremely high turnover rate while on the ball at McNeese. His ability to create as a lead guard straddles the line between exciting and reckless. Right now, he’s sitting on a 3:1 assist to turnover ratio with almost all of his turnovers coming in the first half against UAB. He was a high-usage guy against UNC-G and did not record a turnover. 

Copeland joins Tre Holloman and Darrion Williams as guys that are excellent passers, and it opens up opportunities to initiate offense with different guys and flow through sequences comfortably. When it comes to Williams, he’ll be the centerpiece whenever we exit play time and stuff gets real. I don’t think State has pulled much out of the bag with Williams yet. UNC-G played man the whole game State really got into some pick-and-roll offense in the second half. Williams unlocks so much of this, and we got to see some of it finally. 

Against the Spartans, Wade put Williams into pick and pop sets with Quadir Copeland and into some inverted pick and pop actions with Matt Able and Paul McNeil. With UNC-G trying to ice ball screens and play drop coverage on the middle screens, Wade started going to this a ton out of the halftime break. For everyone that loves to ask for halftime adjustments, here you go. 

This put that defense in the blender. Williams’ first three of the second half came at 16:54 with the score at 51-43. Wade ran an inverted angle pick and pop with Matt Able off the ball, the defender went under the screen, and Williams hit the shot. He hit his last 3 with 4:46 remaining, making the score 96-54 and capping a 45-11 run. 

The second half of that game was hilarious, with Wade just spamming the same couple of actions and the Spartans getting more confused by each iteration. The first half was clunkier as State ran more DHO-based stuff. It wasn’t creating enough advantages from these, and the switch to simpler spread and 4-out pick and pop sets in the second half cracked open the game. I think this will be a huge chunk of State’s offense, and it can easily flow from these actions into various things if the ball is in Williams' hands. He is so good in a dual role here, and right now he’s shooting 65% from three. That will do. 

The other side of the court has had a few more wrinkles that need ironing. Ven-Allen Lubin is really struggling defensively. State is going to switch every exchange, on or off the ball, as a cornerstone of its defensive scheme. Assuming that doesn’t change, teams are going to hunt the Lubin matchup. He’s having a hard time staying in front of guards on the switches. 

Wade had a lot to say about giving up the middle after the UAB game. A lot of that was a product of the Blazers’ smaller guards being able to attack Lubin off the switches. The other part was State getting blown by on its closeouts. State is an aggressive help team. It needed to be better than that effort closing out shooters when it was helping in the gaps. McNeil had some issues with this against UAB, but seemed to be better the following game. 

Every scheme has weaknesses, the obvious one with this being the mismatches that a 1-5 ball screen creates. State has to compensate for that, which is part of why it helps aggressively. It is determined to minimize advantage creation off of screens and to not allow the ball into the paint, and it hasn’t done a great job of that so far. I do come away from these first three games with questions about how well State can guard the ball and keep opposing guards out of the lane once it clears the detritus on its schedule. This will be an interesting storyline to watch as State looks ahead to teams like Louisville that can attack off the bounce and surround you with shooting. Again though, we are three games into the season.

Musa Sagnia's continued development and Arceneaux getting healthy could both be boons for the Pack defensively. Sagnia very obviously carries the highest potential of any of the bigs. State's late signing of Sagnia could drastically alter the fate of this team. Arceneaux is an elite on-ball and rotational defender, and he figures to play starter minutes if he gets healthy and back into the flow of things. I have no idea when that will be.

The schedule is going to get real. Whatever happens there, the other side of the court should carry a lot of water for the team. State is currently number one in the entire country in effective field goal percentage. Not much else matters if you score 110 points, so I think State should just keep doing that.

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