The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1546417
44 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY NOAH FLEISCHMAN C State men's soccer coach Marc Hubbard was busy multitasking at the end of last sea- son. While guiding the Wolfpack to the deepest NCAA Tournament run in program history, he also was having to plan for the future. Hubbard and his staff worked to navi- gate the transfer portal, which opened in the midst of the Pack's sprint to the College Cup title game. Despite the success of his first two seasons in Ra- leigh, which included a 26-8-9 overall record, Sweet 16 appearance and a na- tional runner-up finish last fall, adding veteran players proved difficult. NC State hosted seven transfer por- tal prospects on official visits during its tournament run and didn't land any of them, even though last year's team boasted the nation's leading goal-scorer in Donavan Phillip and the eventual No. 1 pick in the MLS SuperDraft in de- fender Nikola Markovic. Looking back on it eight months later, Hubbard still can't quite wrap his head around the difficulty he encountered trying to improve his roster for the 2026 campaign. "I think this has been the hardest year of my career recruiting," he said. "You'd think it would be the easiest given the success we've had, but we're trying to hold the standard of our players in the world of revenue sharing and NIL." In a perfect world, Hubbard would have been able to sign many of the high- level transfers he and his staff had wel- comed to campus. The Pack was los- ing eight of 11 starters and needed to replenish, but with rosters now being shaped by financial considerations, the opposite happened. Hubbard said the only way NC State could have landed those transfers would have been to overpay, and he didn't want to do that. "That's not a smart fiscal decision when you're trying to spread it out over the roster and build the best possible team you can," he said. "We're trying to always go back to the table and see what we can do differently in those moments, but still stick with our process of being a good person and getting people who N INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR FLAVOR A Rebuilt NC State Soccer Roster Aims To Maintain The Program's Momentum Head coach Marc Hubbard compiled a 26‑8‑9 record in his first two seasons at NC State, with two NCAA Tournament berths and an appearance in last year's College Cup title game. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS