The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 ■ 49 the country, until the cancer returned in 2005. For four years, she was wom- en's college basketball's go-to feel-good story, especially while taking her 2006- 07 team to the ACC title game and ad- vancing to the Sweet 16 in a season in which she had to take a leave of absence while receiving treatment. After Yow died midway through the 2009 season, the transition from legend- ary leader to rebuilder was not easy, but Harper began with a bang, going to the ACC title game and the second round of the NCAA Tournament in her first season. She never returned to postsea- son success and was dismissed after her fourth season. That's when Kay Yow's younger sis- ter, Debbie, who had become athletics director during Harper's tenure, hired one of Kay Yow's former assistants, Wes Moore, from Tennessee-Chattanooga to take over for his coaching mentor. With three consecutive ACC titles (2020-22), four NCAA Sweet 16 appear- ances in a row and a team that has lived in the Top 25 during his 10 years with the program, Moore has exceeded many of Yow's biggest accomplishments. A New Era Because college athletics has changed so much in recent years, Moore's 11th season will be a lot like Doak's first: full of expectations and unknowns. He has had to reset his roster because of NCAA transfer portal departures, something he never dealt with during his ACC champi- onship seasons. He has talent coming in, with three McDonald's All-Americans, to go with a solid corps of veterans. But the world moves fast these days, and Moore's favorite plush toy — a box of McDonald's french fries — on the desk of his second-floor office in Reynolds Coliseum is in jeopardy of becoming ir- relevant. "You can be anywhere in the world, walk into McDonald's and the fries you order will be exactly the same as any other McDonald's," Moore said. "That is the consistency we are striv- ing to have. We pride ourselves that you know what you are going to get: the same effort, the same intensity and the same focus every year. "We want to be hot and salty." That's not how anyone defined last year's team, which finished 9-9 in the ACC, 20-12 overall and was eliminated in the first round of the NCAA Tour- nament. Moore has high hopes for the coming season. "It's going to be a great challenge," he said. "After you've won three ACC championships, your expectations are going to be very high. You don't want to lower those. No matter how young or inexperienced we are, we're still expect- ing to compete." For a coach who is closing in on his 250th victory at NC State and a pro- gram with more than 1,000 all-time wins, resetting is certainly not easy. "We lost some nice talent. We have a core of players who were here a year ago, and we have a [freshman] class that we are excited about," he said. "We will be younger, and we will have to grow up in a hurry. We are playing in a league that is brutally good, and that the portal has made even better." In a half century, however, the world of women's college basketball has changed in innumerable ways. This year's team will have a new locker room. Players have NIL deals that put money in their pockets. They travel and dine in style. The Wolfpack players today have ac- cess to resources that Doak and Casey could never have dreamed of for either men or women back in the world of the 1970s. "Our student-athletes have an un- believable experience," Moore said. And that was the goal from Day 1. ■ Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu. Wes Moore, one of Kay Yow's former assistants, was hired at NC State in 2013 as only the fourth women's basketball head coach in program history. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN " I want to convince everyone that we're try- ing to have a first-class women's athletic program. And we're going to try to win. " Former athletics director Willis Casey on his goals for women's sports at NC State