CHARLOTTE, N.C. — To say it’s been an impressive season for senior guard Quadir Copeland would be an understatement.
Copeland has been the engine behind NC State men’s basketball all season, marking career highs in points, assists, steals, field goal percentage, 3-point percentage and assist-to-turnover ratio. He became the third ACC player in the last 30 seasons to have 400+ points and 200+ assists in a single regular season en route to All-ACC Third Team honors.
Recently, the Pack found itself in a precarious position after dropping six of its last seven games to end the regular season, putting an NCAA Tournament berth that was once considered a “lock” in jeopardy.
With a loss to No. 15 seed Pittsburgh all but guaranteeing No. 7 seed NC State an early trip to Cancun, the Pack rallied behind Copeland’s 24 points and eight assists in a 98-88 win over the Panthers to advance to the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament.
“When your back [is] against the wall, a lot of different things happen,” Copeland said. “A lot of acceptance happens. We understand the position we’re in, and nobody getting in our way.”
It’s not the first time Copeland has taken over a game. Whether it was his 16 assists and 0 turnovers at SMU, a 20-point double-double against Virginia Tech or his 20 points against then-No. 16 UNC-Chapel Hill, Copeland has risen to the occasion and shone for the Pack when it needed him most.
But he wasn’t always the fan-favorite player that he has become.
His journey began on the bench at Syracuse, his most impressive performance being a then-career-high in an upset victory in Raleigh. But after starting just one game in two seasons, Copeland took a gamble and transferred to McNeese State, where he met the man who would be his head coach for the rest of his college career — Will Wade.
“There weren’t a lot of options for him,” Wade said. “I was like Last Chance U down there [at McNeese].”
On paper, the pairing didn’t make sense. The fiery, stubborn player playing for the hard-nosed, no-nonsense coach. But it somehow worked.
“He put me through trials and tribulations that people wouldn’t even believe,” Copeland said. “He knew what it was going to turn into. If I wasn’t the dog that I was, and if he knew that I wasn’t the person I was, he wouldn’t have put me through that.”
The gamble paid off. In their first year together, the duo helped McNeese win the Southland Conference Tournament and make the NCAA Tournament for just the fourth time in program history.
“How you do anything is how you do everything,” Wade said. “He’s tightened his life up off the court, which has allowed him to tighten his game up on the court.”
When Wade took the job at NC State, the first thing he did was bring Copeland back to the ACC, though even he didn’t expect the level of improvement that he has shown.
“I don’t know if we’ve had a player in our program over all my years that has shown the growth that he’s shown,” Wade said. “I’m very proud of him.”
Since November, Wade has trusted Copeland to control and pace the offense, letting his guard make the plays he wants when he wants and entrusting him to make the right decision. Whenever Copeland starts his usual trash-talk on the court or begins to get in trouble with the referees, Wade is the first person to call him out and calm him down.
“I didn’t always trust the process, but I trust him now,” Copeland said. “He led the way, he made everything easy for me. And the one thing I always could say, no matter what was said, he always got my back one-thousand percent. That’s all I can ask for, loyalty.”
Wade believed in his player when no one else did, and now that same player likely helped secure NC State its first NCAA Tournament berth since its Final Four run with Wednesday’s win over the Panthers. All it took was a gamble and a little bit of trust.
“I earned it all,” Copeland said. “Nothing was given to me, nothing was handed to me.”
