If There's a Will...

What a week.

The surprise firing of Kevin Keatts. A candidate list containing every name under the sun. Flight tracking. I had almost forgotten how exhausting and exciting Coaching Search season is.

As the dust settles, it’s looking more and more likely that Will Wade is the number one target for Boo Corrigan right now. And that Wade is…extremely interested in joining the Pack in Raleigh?

I’m not going to dig into the logistics and time stamps of the search in this article. There are other folks and websites that would do a much better job of that than me.

But I will share, first and foremost, that I’m already having a difficult time putting words on the page for this.

Because I’m so damn excited at the idea of Will Wade at the helm of N.C. State basketball.

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A quick look at the board state of the world N.C. State basketball is playing in:

Last year’s March run was phenomenal. N.C. State was March Madness. I think we might diminish how incredible those four weeks were.​

And yet, multiple things can be true at the same time.

March 12th, 2024 - April 6th, 2024 was the best thing I’ve experience in my life as a fan, and the direction of this program over the last twenty years has been sideways (at best.) The program has more bottom four ACC finishes than top four this century. The Pack hasn’t been better than an 8 seed in the NCAA tournament since 2003.

For a program steeped in history, sitting smack dab in the middle of the beating heart of college basketball, that’s not good enough.

Looking outside of the program, the ACC is a conference in transition. Legendary coaches have retired at a remarkable pace. Leonard Hamilton’s final game last week marks the seventh coach to depart the ACC in the last 4 years. Then there’s the quality of play: a once dominant March staple will have just four teams make the tournament this year. (One of those shouldn't have, but good for them.)

Then there’s the money. Like it or not, NIL and revenue sharing are here. It’s no secret that N.C. State isn’t the most well-funded program in the ACC. Programs like Duke, Louisville, and UNC are playing by a different set of rules when it comes to paying for high quality talent. At a time when the divide between haves and have nots in the sport are growing, the right hire could be just the spark to open get both grassroots and major donors to support.

What about where State actually plays its games? The Lenovo center and surrounding area is getting a serious face lift. The environment needs a facelift, and it certainly needs an injection of energy. While the dream of moving games back to Reynolds is a fun one, State still stands to gain a lot from having such a big investment made in the area.

Strictly looking at what’s happening in and around N.C. State Men’s Basketball, you can see the window opening. There’s an opportunity forming that this program can reach out and grab. But it has to try.

Now, Will Wade. Starting with his resume, from Wikipedia:

Ignoring his time at Chattanooga and VCU - which are both impressive stints - he went to LSU and got them into the top of the conference consistently. Wade left LSU with the highest win percentage by a coach since the 1920s, was a tournament caliber team four years in a row, and won a regular season championship in the SEC.

All he’s done at McNeese is win the most games in program history over the course of two years. A "perfectly fine" three for four on regular season and tournament championships. At a school that had only danced in the NCAA tournament twice prior to his time there. He did have a huge talent advantage over the rest of his conference from the reputation and funding he had available, but that doesn’t negate the overwhelming success he's seen there.

One of my good friends worked on VCU’s staff with Will. He had this to say about what Wade would be bringing to Raleigh:​ “On a staff with these now head coaches: Shaka Smart (Marquette), Mike Rhoades (Penn State), Mike Morrell (UNC-Asheville), Jeremy Ballard (FIU), Dwight Perry (Wofford) - Will always felt like the hardest worker and smartest guy in the room, and that’s no disrespect to the other guys.

He got the toughest scouts and the best recruits. He’s broken some rules, but also could find stuff that was legal..and shouldn’t have been..and then exploited it.”

Hardest working guy in the room, willing to get creative to maximize his margin for winning…yeah, sign me up.

Coaching is one part of the equation. Coaches themselves will tell you that talent evaluation and acquisition is more important. Whomever State hires needs more resources to work with to build a top-end ACC roster - and the reality is that it’s going to have to come from grassroots, big donors, and revenue share channels.

N.C State was middle of the road this year in its roster value, but way behind the upper echelon in the league of Duke, Louisville, UNC, and Clemson. It’s been said that Wade’s camp has pushed for a significant increase in funding that would put State in the top third of the ACC in roster resources.

Regardless of where the exact NIL and Revenue Sharing numbers land, Wade providing that forcing function - and reportedly having players at schools across the country waiting to see where he goes next - is a huge win. You can already start to see his impact.

​OnePack has seen a huge spike in donations this week. Over 322 new members in 7 - a 20% spike in memberships - and over $225,000 in annualized funds raised. That doesn’t account for what big donors are willing to do, and from reading online, that figure will continue to climb significantly if Wade is announced as the guy.

Certainly a significant chunk of these portions happen if any other candidate emerged as the go-to option, but the buzz Wade has built is tangible.

(Shameless plug: you can get involved as a member or one time donator here.)

The fan base is beyond fired up. You can’t click anywhere on Twitter without seeing #WadeToState. At the time of me checking this post, 96 of the 115 replies to this tweet are from State Fans telling Wade to come to Raleigh:

Of course, there are reasons Wade detoured from Baton Rouge to Lake Charles. Five Level 1 NCAA violations, paying off players and family and friends, doing so behind the backs of administrators - character concerns here are fair. There’s been rumblings of him being difficult to work with, demanding, and running people over to get what he feels he needs for his programs.

I’m not interested in hiring someone with no moral compass. But if Boo and co feel confident in the quality of Wade as a person, and the only concern is the NCAA stuff, I’ll simply point out that every power conference team has been funneling payments - somehow, someway - to players before NIL was legal.

And that, uh, doing that now is…legal.

In an alternate universe where Wade isn’t fired from LSU, he’s probably hopped to a blueblood program, and established himself as a top coach in the sport. This is not the profile of a coach that State would normally be in the running for. You’re getting a “discount”, an opportunity to land a high quality coach in Wade because of the NCAA stuff.

He’s done his time. Suspended for a full year, grinding it out for two years at a lower level school, and now back in play for a school willing to take a chance on him. He has a young daughter, and mentioned in a recent interview a desire for his next job to be a place where he can settle for “the next ten years” as he looks to build a life with his family.

Will Wade is looking directly at his own window, too.

The timing and opportunity for both sides…it almost feels like too good of a fit. The red light in my brain labeled “N.C. STATE SKEPTICISM” is flashing so bright my head is hurting. It’s the hope that kills you, right?

On Saturday night, St. Johns won the Big East Championship with Rick Pitino at the helm, just two years into his tenure in Queens. On a journey reminiscent of Wade's.

College basketball staple Jon Rothstein tweeted the following:

It wasn’t intended to be, but it felt like a direct shot at N.C. State.​

State could hire someone else and win, certainly. But Wade as a candidate feels different - a program and a coach with opportunities abound, tremendous upside, and perfect timing.

Right time, right guy. Go get Will Wade.