North Carolina State coach Will Wade is finding plenty of areas to address with this team after mostly cruising through two games in the first week of the season.
The next task will come against visiting UNC Greensboro on Wednesday night in Raleigh, N.C.
Wade is dissecting the defense and offense.
“We got to be able to sit down and guard the ball, and our gap help gets too extended, and we got to sit in the gaps and rake at the ball and not let them just straight line drive us to the paint,” Wade said.
North Carolina State (2-0) will play its third home game, most recently topping UAB 94-70 on Friday. Wade said the Blazers’ 44 points in the paint were too many.
Allowing 17 offensive rebounds didn’t sit well with the coach, either. He said he wants every player on the court responsible for rebounding.
“We didn’t crack down with the guards, (so) that’s not going to work,” Wade said.
UNC Greensboro (0-2) has had its own issues on defense. The Spartans lost their home opener 92-90 in overtime to Elon on Saturday after falling 93-64 in their season opener last week at Kansas State.
“A lot of teachable moments,” UNC Greensboro coach Mike Jones said. “There’s certainly a lot of opportunities for us to teach these guys.”
The Spartans experienced troubles on the boards in the Elon game.
“Really, the story of the game was them getting 19 offensive rebounds,” Jones said.
The good news for the Spartans is that they had six players reach double-figures points, led by 18 from Donald Whitehead Jr., a graduate transfer from Division II California of Pennsylvania.
North Carolina State will work on its zone offense after getting out of sync in those situations in the UAB game.
“Our shot quality was not what it needed to be, so that was pretty disappointing, but we were able to get that corrected as we went through the game,” Wade said.
But Paul McNeil Jr. drew attention driving toward the lane, and his teammates appreciated those efforts. McNeil finished with 18 points vs. UAB.
“When shots were not falling, we had guys driving to the basket,” Wolfpack guard Quadir Copeland said.
