The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1540860
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 ■ 31 in NC State deciding to hire Case as its basketball coach, even though he had no college coaching experience. Certainly, if Vaughn had any remaining college eligibility, the coach would have brought him to Raleigh. A New Start No first-year coach in Wolfpack bas- ketball history has had more leeway in building his initial team than Case — at least not until new coach Will Wade took over the program earlier this year. Shortly after being hired in March from McNeese, Wade began an overhaul of the Wolfpack roster he inherited from Kevin Keatts, keeping only one scholar- ship player from a team that finished 12- 19 overall and 5-15 in ACC play. Wade seems to have been successful in building his first squad, at least con- sidering the attention and anticipation created prior to the Nov. 3 opener against North Carolina Central. His team was picked to finish fourth in the ACC in a preseason vote of media, while Texas Tech senior transfer Darrion Williams was tabbed as the league's pre- season Player of the Year. Wade steadfastly refuses to call his careful crafting of a deep and balanced roster a "rebuilding process." "We're going to be in the top part of the ACC next year, and we're going to the NCAA Tournament," the coach said at his introductory press conference. "It's going to be done quickly. We are here to win." He has clearly stated since his first day on the job that he planned to put together a team capable of playing for a champi- onship this year, something that eluded every predecessor from 1987 under Jim Valvano until Keatts and company won an unlikely ACC Tournament crown in 2024. "You don't get to build a program anymore," Wade said this past summer. "Now, you build a new team every sea- son and try to put together the best team you can. We have tried to be deliberate to find the best players that are a fit for this school. "We measure twice and cut once, spending a lot of time on the front end, doing research and finding the players that we wanted to build the team we want." Williams was the biggest jewel in the transfer class, if the preseason rankings are to be believed. In addition, redshirt senior guard Alyn Breed and senior guard Quadir Copeland came aboard after playing for Wade at McNeese last season. There is a little local flavor with Raleigh native Colt Langdon, who sat out a redshirt season at Butler last year, and North Carolina transfer Ven-Allen Lubin, who is now on his fourth team in five years. Like Lubin, junior forward Jerry Deng is an intra-ACC transfer from Florida State. Senior point guard Tre Holloman played at Michigan State last year, while redshirt junior guard Terrance Arce- neaux played for a Houston squad that advanced to the NCAA title game. And although Wade lost out on Paul Mbiya, he replaced the 7-foot center with 6-10 Wyoming grad transfer Scottie Ebube. How can a team find a way to com- pete with so many new faces? Wade has dabbled in a number of team-building exercises through the summer and early fall, an attempt to create success through hasty chemistry. Whether that process will translate into success on the court is the new eter- nal question in college athletics. The an- swer is: It happened before, even if it was a long time ago. Case Scrambles Before he enlisted in the U.S. Navy a year after Pearl Harbor, Case won four Indiana single-class high school state championships, more than any other coach. His knowledge of the college game was minimal, although he did beat mul- tiple Big Ten teams as a military coach at DePauw University and with the Navy's Iowa Seahawks. Forward Richard Dickey of Alexandria, Ind., spent three years in the Navy before becoming one of the star players on NC State's 1946-47 team. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS