“It’s going to be a reckoning for the ACC,” said head coach Will Wade during his introductory press conference. “It’s going to be a reckoning for college basketball, and it’s coming, and it’s coming soon.”
Dropping five of its last six games, there is no sign of Wade’s reckoning as his first season in Raleigh winds down. Rather, the ACC is handing Wade one of his toughest challenges yet as NC State sits at 10-7 in conference play. During his 11 prior seasons as a head coach, Wade’s teams have only lost seven or more conference games once.
The losses speak for themselves, however the manner in which NC State is losing is notable. The Wolfpack fell by 41 at Louisville, by 29 at No. 13 Virginia and most recently by 29 against No. 1 Duke.
“We’ve had some loud losses,” Wade said after NC State’s loss to Duke. “We’ve gotten beat by 30 now three times. That’s bad anyway you slice it.”
Every coach experiences losing. However, Wade historically avoids blowouts. Wade never experienced losses of this magnitude at McNeese or VCU. He only lost by 29 or more twice at LSU, once in 2021 and once in 2017. Yet with three such losses in one year, Wade’s reckoning is nowhere to be found.
The reckoning also is struggling with taking care of business against lesser competition. Suffering upset losses to Georgia Tech and Notre Dame, who are 18th and 15th in the ACC respectively. These losses put the Wolfpack in a position where it needed to pull off wins against the ACC’s best to be on track towards finishing near the top of the conference standings.
“We’ve missed some three-foot putts,” Wade said. “When you miss three-foot putts and try to make up for it on 30-footers, it’s hard to do. Our margins are pretty thin right now. We can’t punch in the heavyweights right now, but the middleweights and lightweights, we’ve let them knock us around a little bit too.”
The hay is almost in the barn this season. NC State has one more regular season game before the postseason. While technically anything is possible in March, as seen by the former coach Kevin Keatts’ historic run to the Final Four, this year’s Wolfpack squad hasn’t shown signs of the promised reckoning. Instead, NC State is simply an above average ACC team — a major improvement from last year, but not up to the standard Wade set before the season.
“We’re not there right now,” Wade said. “And we’ve gotta get there and we’ve gotta get there quick. This program deserves it and our fans deserve it.”
On the whole, NC State’s season is neither a success nor a failure. At 19-11, the season closely mimics Keatts first season in Raleigh when the Wolfpack went 21-12 and earned an 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Keatts’ initial squad mostly handled business, earned a win over rival North Carolina and closed the season on a slump by dropping three of the last four games.
While NC State fans will be forever grateful for the ACC championship and Final Four appearance that Keatts delivered, they want more. NC State signed Wade to build a consistent winner and turn the Pack into an ACC heavyweight. Following NC State’s recent losses to Duke and Virginia, it’s clear that there is still a significant gap between the Wolfpack and the top of the ACC.
“These guys are a little different weight class than we are right now,” said head coach Will Wade. “We know where we got to get to. We could see that live and in person today. This is where we have to strive to get up to that weight class.”
Much like Keatts after his first season, Wade is now at a crossroads. If he can build off of this season and use it as a springboard into the top tier of the ACC then he will be on track to deliver on his promise of a reckoning. If not, then he’ll simply be the latest coach that fails to lead the Wolfpack out of the wilderness.
But as it looks right now, the Red Reckoning is postponed till next season.
