Quadir Copeland Shining Early for NC State

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, but he took over in that type of role following Alyn Breed’s injury at McNeese. Through 10 games at NC State, he has not only assumed that role, but he’s playing at the highest level of his career. 

Water may eventually find its level with some of these numbers, but Copeland is shooting 70% at the rim this season, and less than 15% of his makes have been assisted. He’s also top 100 nationally in free throw rate. These numbers tell a story, the same story that the tape tells. Copeland puts a lot of pressure on the rim. 

It’s critical that your primaries are able to do that. Otherwise it hamstrings the entire operation. State lived with this affliction the last two years. It was able to DJ its way out of it in the final four season, but the music stopped playing last year. Get it? A DJ joke? This was the critical failure of Kevin Keatts’ roster building, and it’s something Wade has put a lot more value on. Thus Copeland, who achieves this while also being an excellent passer. The result so far has been a reliable creator who has fueled State’s offense through a lot of the early season.

Against Texas, he scored or assisted on 16 of State’s 34 makes and single-handedly kept the offense going through certain stretches of that game, which was a game that demanded everything from the offense just to keep it close. He was 7 for 8 at the rim as Texas struggled keep him out of the paint. Against Auburn, he again scored or assisted on almost half the buckets. Over the last four games, Copeland is shooting 77% at the rim as a guard, is 4 for 7 from three, and has 24 assists to 7 turnovers.

Copeland can certainly explode off a screen, but one of his assets is his change of pace and ability to play at different speeds. He’s got a pretty deep bag as a finisher, which benefits from great length that allows him to finish around guys. He loves the spin move and he can hit someone with a pretty nice deceleration step. The ability to slow down and even get into some back-to-the-basket activity also helps to neutralize the disadvantage his lack of shooting creates. He doesn’t have to beat a guy off the bounce to score. 

This opens up a lot of interesting offense for Will Wade. You can post him up against smaller guards, which we saw against Liberty, and he creates isolation issues against teams that want to switch screens. He's obviously an excellent passer against the hedge and drop coverage, and we've seen him pay off some Ven-Allen Lubin rim runs against both of those ball screen coverages. His passing and his ability to score aren't really new things, but he's showing up as a more complete player so far in 2025.

The two biggest knocks on his game historically were that he had a PhD in turning the ball over and he absolutely could not shoot. Both of those things have improved so far this season. He still turns the ball over, but his turnover rate has dipped pretty dramatically. The same can be said about the jumpshot, that it isn't a totally new world there, but there is obvious improvement. The amount of gas that a real off-the-dribble jumper could throw on the fire would be tremendous. He does not have that, but he’s been an opportunistic three-point shooter, and he’s made enough to keep teams honest. Copeland was at “don’t shoot ever” levels of shooting prior to this season. He’s taking and making them now when teams are kind enough to offer it, which makes it a little harder to go under ball screens as well. If Copeland hits six more threes this year, he’ll have matched his career total.

Copeland has been a really good fit so far both culturally and on the court. He's played hard through some of the questionable stretches the team put on the court in Maui and Auburn. With Darrion Williams still trying to find his groove and State not having a ton of obvious other answers when it comes to creation, adding Copeland has been a pretty huge win for a team that’s still trying to find its maximum gear. Williams eventually needs to be the best player on the floor or State will bump its head on the ceiling, but Copeland’s ability to operate the system and make plays outside of it has been massive. I’m not sure where the Pack would be without it.