It was immediately clear to us that while the primary motive for NC State’s hiring Will Wade was absolutely to win, there was a secondary factor as well: his personality was destined to rub UNC (and UNC fans) the wrong way, and in Raleigh, that’s a huge plus.
We got hints of it early on and then a bigger one when he swiped Ven-Allen Lubin from Chapel Hill and then rubbed it in when he said that UNC – meaning Hubert Davis obviously – was “too dumb to play him.”
Here’s the full quote: “The other school
was too dumb to play him. When [Lubin] plays 28-plus minutes — he’s done that in 23 games — he averages 15 (points) and eight (rebounds). I don’t know why the hell they didn’t play him, but we’re gonna play him. So he’s gonna average 15 and eight. We’re very excited about Ven.”
That sort of aggression is quickly becoming a team value. Just look how transfer Darrion Williams is following in his new coach’s footsteps when he said this about Lubin and how Davis used him last season: “I think their coach did Ven wrong, and then he did Kerwin Walton wrong — my old teammate at Tech — when he [played for UNC]. So, yeah, I just don’t like the guy…[State] fans are crazy. We hate UNC, which I don’t have a problem with. I hate UNC, as well.”
Walton played for UNC in 2020-21 before transferring to Texas Tech.
Indirectly, Williams boosted our thesis that Davis is just not blessed with great people skills. Players like Caleb Love, Elliot Cadeau and Drake Powell all left with uncertainty and frustration about their roles.
Anyway, for our part, do we like it?
No. We don’t like it.
We love it.
State accepted third place status in the Triangle hierarchy for far too long. It all works better when all three schools are ferociously competitive and whatever else happens, you get the sense that these guys are going to come after UNC and Duke. We’ll all be better for that.
