The only problem with NC State coach Will Wade’s monologue following a 36-point victory Thursday over Texas Southern is it was so damn funny.
He wanted to be taken seriously, and probably his target audience will, but his humor risked muting its intended ferocity.
There isn’t any question what Wade was trying to achieve in blasting his team after what was an obviously comfortable non-conference win. He was sending a loud and cogent message about the standard his first team with the Wolfpack must establish and maintain. It’s coaching. Many of us have criticized Wade in the past for other issues, but this is the arena in which he excels.
Interspersed with his severe and occasionally exaggerated criticisms of the Pack (8-4) to date were four punch lines that would have delighted Kevin Hart.
Let’s rank them for you in terms of their hilarity, and at least try to put them in perspective, which you probably won’t find many places elsewhere around the internet.
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1. “We’ve got a lot of nice guys. Got a great team GPA, over 3.0. We’ve got all that stuff. It’s wonderful – if we were running a daycare.”
We can torture this statement to the same degree as was Temple coach John Chaney’s overly physical threat against John Calipari, then of UMass. Chaney interrupted Calipari’s postgame press conference to shout, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kick your ass!”
This was paraphrased by many in the media as Chaney “threatened to kill” Calipari. It was sports media at its worst, and that was before the World Wide Web was a thing. What Chaney said was typical of schoolyards and playgrounds; no one should have doubted Chaney’s desire to punch out Calipari, but it never was more than that.
And so it is here. Wade is not saying he cares not at all about his athletes’ academic pursuits. At the least, he is smart enough to know academic ineligibility still exists. He’s saying he wants his athletes to do well not only in reading and writing, but also the arithmetic of basketball, which includes geometry, addition and subtraction. He’s particularly focused on subtraction.
2. “I had one of the kids come to me, saying, ‘I’m tough’. … You wouldn’t make the top 25 of the last five years I’ve coached, and I sat out a year.”
Wade is not seeing the requisite toughness from the majority of his players, and that is evident in their performances in the most challenging games. They did deliver a significant performance in a 1-point loss to Kansas, but their other high-major defeats – to Seton Hall, Texas and Auburn – were against teams that either have performed inadequately or have carried the fragrance of overachievement. (Looking at you, Pirates).
You want a measure of toughness? State is No. 199 in offensive rebounding percentage, according to KenPom.com. And it’s not because the Pack are a small team.
“We’re running a competitive basketball program, and quite frankly I’ve been trying to get some urgency and some internal leadership,” Wade said. “We’ve got a lot of casual personalities on our team.”
3. “We’ve got all high major games from here on out. Kindergarten is over.”
State is 0-4 against opponents from the five power conferences. Its victories include a few against high-end mid-majors -- Boise State, UAB and VCU — but beginning with Sunday’s game against Ole Miss, there are few if any places for State to relax in the games that remain.
This is not last year’s ACC, when there were nothing but places to relax. Wade’s concern is not misplaced.
4. Asked if he’s concerned it’s taking so long to get the Pack going, his emphatic answer, “To get it going? It’s concerning it’s taking this long and we’re not there.”
That one pretty much requires no explanation.
Of course there has been some public reaction expressing horror that Wade would publicly criticize his players so brazenly, but he didn’t use any profanity. He didn’t even go so far as to use the word “ass“ which he has been known to do in the past, albeit never in reference to one of his players.
Wade has his staff chart every mistake made in practices, and he charted 36 offensive and defensive execution errors in the pre-TSU shootaround.
“Our first team made 14, our second team made 22,” Wade said. “How in the hell can you be on the second team and watch the first team do it and make eight more mistakes? You’re running the same stuff.”
In fairness to Wade, we probably should have ranked that one, as well. It’s pretty damn funny, also.
If this message doesn’t connect with his players, though, the only ones laughing will be the 75 percent majority on the ACC’s North Carolina teams that do no include red as part of their color scheme. They’ll be howling from here to March.