The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1543694
NC State senior walk-on Jordan Snell carried a bedazzled belt into the postgame press conference, placing it on the shoulders of senior forward Ven-Allen Lubin when he sat down in the Lenovo Center me- dia room just moments after handing No. 16 North Carolina a 24-point loss. Encrusted with rhinestones spelling out the words "NC State Basket- ball," the belt drew the attention of everyone in the room. It was NC State's answer to a comment out of Chapel Hill months earlier about the kind of punishment that the Tar Heels were expecting to dole out to their in-state rivals this season. Neither Lubin nor any of his team- mates had seen the belt before that night, but following NC State's most lopsided win in the series since 1962, they appreciated the sym- bolism. "It just represents what we're going to continue to do to the rest of the teams this season," Lubin said. The belt didn't appear out of thin air. It had been in the works for several weeks, the byproduct of a viral social media video from last fall that featured UNC star forward Caleb Wilson promising to rout any in- state ACC program. "I don't like Duke, I don't like NC State, I don't like Wake Forest," Wil- son said in the video. "This year, we're putting belt on everybody. I'm talking a real belt — sparkled, bedazzled." Those words caught fire, leading to Wilson having a Carolina blue- and-silver bedazzled belt as his prop for a SLAM Magazine cover pho- toshoot, and to use after big wins this season. That caught NC State's attention. Wolfpack players didn't want UNC to use their belt in Raleigh with a win, so they had one of their own made. Senior guard Quadir Copeland, who led the Pack with 20 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists, was prepared with receipts following the Feb. 17 clash at the Lenovo Center. "They were talking a lot of, you know, 'North Carolina schools this, North Carolina schools that,'" Copeland said. "It's crazy how fast some tables turn. We bedazzled our belt for them, too." The idea for the belt came from Reed Vial, NC State's special assis- tant to the head coach. If the Wolfpack were to beat UNC, Reed knew that a red-and-black belt would be the perfect response to Wilson's comments, so he put out a purposefully vague request on social me- dia, hoping that someone in NC State's renowned Wilson School of Textiles might be able to help with the special project. Senior Kayla Bigley saw the message and quickly replied. She had grown up in the pageant scene and knew how to work with rhine- stones. Bigley spent the next few weeks brainstorming ideas. The color scheme was the only nonnegotiable element; everything else was up to her. When she studied Wilson's sparkly UNC belt, the buckle immediately stood out with its gaudy, oversized clasp. Bigley didn't want to create a knockoff of that design, but she also knew that her belt had to have its own attention-grabbing element. "I wanted the belt buckle to have the 'Block S' on it," she said. "I looked at Caleb's belt and I saw this fat, Western-looking belt buckle. I wanted ours to be different from that." It took Bigley six days to place upwards of 2,000 individual rhinestones onto the belt, with the "Block S" buckle serving as the statement piece. A self-described perfectionist, she worked on it until game day, delivering the finished product to a happy Vial in the hours before tipoff. Bigley is also a member of NC State's cheerleading squad, but she wasn't on the sideline for the game against UNC. Instead, she was in the stands with her friends, hoping the Pack would win and her cre- ation would be unveiled. After the game, Bigley and her friends made their way to the Bell- tower to celebrate with droves of other students. All the while, she was checking her social media accounts. Soon enough, Bigley began seeing photos in her Instagram feed of players holding the belt in the locker room, followed by videos of the press conference. With the postseason nearly at hand, Bigley hopes the belt will take on a life of its own as an inspirational prop, like the football team's turnover bone. But no matter what happens, her creation has already brought happiness to others, and that's what she hoped to do all along. "To some, it's just a belt," Bigley said. "To me, it was bringing people joy." — Noah Fleischman Basketball Belt Brings Joy To Some, Pain To Others Forward Ven-Allen Lubin holds the Wolfpack's new basketball belt aloft following the team's 82-58 win over North Carolina on Feb. 17. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS MARCH/APRIL 2026 ■ 25