Inside NC State men’s basketball’s non-conference scheduling strategy for Will Wade’s inaugural season

When Will Wade was introduced as NC State’s 21st head coach in program history, he made it a point to stress the importance of his scheduling approach. He made it clear that he wasn’t going to be afraid of pitting the Wolfpack against a quality non-conference schedule. 

After all, that’s exactly what he did in his two seasons at McNeese — the No. 76 non-conference schedule in 2023-24 and the No. 25 toughest last season — before arriving in Raleigh.

“We’re going to challenge ourselves in the ACC, we’re going to challenge ourselves in the non-conference,” Wade said when he was hired. “You can’t be the best playing a bunch of bad teams. You get better by playing the best teams in the country.

“At McNeese, we had the 21st-ranked non-conference schedule in the country. That was at McNeese. We’re going to play the best. We’re going to challenge the best. We’ll schedule some Hall of Fame coaches if we need to.”

Wade didn’t just talk to talk on that March afternoon inside Reynolds Coliseum. He backed it up with his first non-conference slate at NC State. It’s a mix of quality mid-major competition with several Power Conference opportunities, all of which as an effort to position the Pack for Selection Sunday.

The 42-year-old coach tasked assistant Brandon Chambers with building this year’s schedule, which had a clearer picture of what it will look like by the end of Wade’s mid-summer press conference Wednesday. 

NC State’s games against NC Central (Nov. 3), UAB (Nov. 7), VCU (Nov. 17), at Auburn (Dec. 3), Kansas (Dec. 13), Ole Miss (Dec. 21, neutral) and Liberty with a trip to the Maui Invitational were already known, but Wade spilled the beans on the remainder of the slate. The Wolfpack will also host UNC-Asheville, UNC-Greensboro and Texas Southern — which will be the annual Heritage game at Reynolds. 

That collective slate of games illustrates just how Wade wanted to approach his non-conference schedule with Chambers leading the way. It’s a combination of top teams that are expected to compete for their respective leagues, while incorporating local opponents into the mix. 

All three in-state mid-major opponents were born from pre-existing relationships. NC Central coach LaVelle Moton was the first to call Wade when he accepted the job at NC State, while UNC-Asheville coach Mike Morrell and UNC-Greensboro coach Mike Jones worked with him as young assistants at VCU. 

That trio all called Wade looking to get his new squad on their non-conference schedules. He believed that it was the perfect chance to do so. 

“I think it’s important for our fans that we play as many of those local teams as we can,” Wade said Wednesday. “Those guys call and want to play, we’re going to play. If we’re going to ask fans to come to Lenovo, we’re going to ask fans to come to games, we at least need to have teams they’re familiar with.”

While UNC-Asheville and Greensboro are consistent contenders at the top of their respective leagues, providing a chance for those in-state fan bases to see their beloved teams battle in Raleigh is something that Wade takes to heart. 

“It’s big for Coach Wade, and it’s big for the State of North Carolina, it never made sense for us when we were at LSU or McNeese why you wouldn’t play teams in your state,” Chambers said. “I think No. 1 fan involvement and engagement is huge. … Coach has made it a point to make sure that we highlight those schools. 

“It’s great for NC State. It’s great for NC State households that may have a kid at NC State and a kid at another in-state school. I think it’s great for their fanbase as well to have a chance to play a program in their state that they might not have been able to play against [before].”

While the mid-major games will help boost both fan engagement and the Wolfpack’s ability to win quality buy games — the dollar amounts and dates haven’t been released via a Freedom of Information Act request yet — Wade’s staff didn’t shy away from putting high-major teams on the slate too. 

NC State already had Kansas on the schedule to complete last season’s home-and-home that Kevin Keatts agreed to, but Wade was able to land a home-and-home with VCU — a perennial contender in the Atlantic 10 — and a neutral two-game series with Ole Miss. 

The Rebels were the final major addition to the slate, and that wasn’t coincidental. The Wolfpack was content with adding another buy game for that spot, but once the ACC released the opponent pairings for this season, Wade felt like his squad needed another Quad 1 opportunity. Thus, a date with Ole Miss in Greensboro. 

Wade and his staff are analytics junkies. Numbers help formulate a lot of what they do on a day-to-day basis — from recruiting to in-game rotations — and scheduling is no different. At first, they’d hoped to make the Ole Miss series a true home-and-home, but having it as two neutral site games almost ensured that they’d be Quad 1 opportunities. 

“They tell us on the front end who the teams we’re playing. You can project out how many of those games are going to be Quad 1, Quad 2, Quad 3,” Wade said. “You know what an average NCAA Tournament resume looks like and how many Quad 1, Quad 2, Quad 3 games they play. Then you just do simple addition and subtraction. The league’s going to get us seven. We need 12. We gotta go get five. It’s simple.”

NC State has a schedule it feels will allow it to compete for an at-large bid next spring. Now, it needs to win outside of its ACC games to set itself up for success on Selection Sunday to put itself firmly in the field — something the Wolfpack struggled to do the past two seasons.

“I feel good about our schedule,” Wade said. “It’s going to be tough, but we have to. The league’s only going to give us so much right now.”

A look at the non-conference schedule

Nov. 3: NC Central – Lenovo Center – all-time series: NC State leads, 4-1
Nov. 7: UAB – Lenovo Center – all-time series: UAB leads, 1-0
Nov. 17: VCU – Lenovo Center – all-time series: First meeting
Nov. 24-26: Maui Invitational – three games
Dec. 3: at Auburn – Neville Arena – all-time series: NC State leads, 4-2
Dec. 13: vs. Kansas – Lenovo Center – all-time series: Kansas leads, 13-1
Dec. 21: vs. Ole Miss – Greensboro Coliseum – all-time series: Tied, 1-1
TBA: Liberty – Lenovo Center – all-time series: NC State leads, 2-0
TBA: UNC-Asheville – Lenovo Center – all-time series: NC State leads, 19-0
TBA: UNC-Greensboro – Lenovo Center – all-time series: NC State leads, 11-1
TBA: Texas Southern – Reynolds Coliseum – all-time series: NC State leads, 1-0