NC State’s defense too soft against No. 19 Kansas in overtime loss

RALEIGH, N.C. — So much for the analytics.

And so much for NC State’s “Red Reckoning.”

In March, when the Wolfpack tapped Will Wade to provide long-term stability to a men’s basketball program sorely needing it, he promised an immediate turnaround in Raleigh. “It’ll be a reckoning for college basketball,” he said during his introductory news conference, “and it’s coming.” Long-suffering NC State fans, as expected, absolutely ate that sentiment up — so much so that the program made Wade’s one-liner the opening narration for its season-long hype video.

But 11 games into Wade’s tenure, that reckoning that was promised?

Hasn’t materialized. At all.

Saturday’s 77-76 overtime loss to No. 19 Kansas didn’t just drop Wade’s Wolfpack to 7-4 overall, it continued a troubling trend: Six weeks into the season, and with most of its nonconference slate in the rearview, NC State still doesn’t have a single win against a high-major foe, going 0-4 against Seton Hall, Texas, Auburn and now KU. Even worse? It’s the same toothless defense dooming the Wolfpack time and time again. Against those four power-conference opponents, NC State is surrendering an average of 86.8 points. Somehow, Saturday’s defensive effort — in which Kansas scored 1.1 points per possession while shooting 54.3 percent overall and 58.3 percent from 3 in the final 25 minutes — is probably NC State’s best against such competition.

Melvin Council dropped a cool 3️⃣6️⃣ in @KUHoops’s nail-biting road win over NC State 🪣 pic.twitter.com/OSPxKsZNFD

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) December 14, 2025

“Time’s running out,” Wade said. “I’m not hitting the panic button … but we haven’t won the games we’ve needed to win. That’s just a fact.”

So too is the reality that NC State’s defense has been nowhere near good enough. And there’s no better example of that than how exactly the Wolfpack fell Saturday: by allowing Kansas guard Melvin Council Jr. — a career 27.3 percent 3-point shooter entering the night, who had made only five of his 27 3-point attempts this season — to drop a career-high 36 points, including a career-high nine made 3s.

For context, that’s the second-most 3s a Kansas player has ever made in a single game, and the most in Bill Self’s 23-season tenure.

“Probably telling his grandkids about that one,” Wade said of Council’s performance.

Council deserves credit, obviously, for carrying the Jayhawks on a night star freshman guard Darryn Peterson exited early with hamstring cramps. But it can also be true that NC State didn’t offer nearly enough defensive resistance, especially after Council hit his first few from deep.

The most jarring part about that? At least to some extent, the 3s that Council was taking — and making — were the exact shots NC State wanted him to attempt.

Wade’s best defenses — at McNeese the last two seasons and at LSU before that — have been predicated on pressure, switching and forcing opponents into turnovers. NC State is trying to do the same in Wade’s debut campaign in Raleigh, and there were glimpses Saturday of how those concepts coalesce. But the flip side of the coin was unavoidable: That strategy is designed to yield a fair number of 3s. In fact, after Saturday, opponents have taken a staggering 49.1 percent of their shots against the Wolfpack from 3, one of the 10 highest rates in the country, per KenPom.

As Wade said following NC State’s win over VCU in November, after the Rams attempted 42 triples: “It looks like, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s an open shot’ — but it’s not nearly as high a percentage shot as you would think, if it’s the type of 3 that we want taken.”

Translation: We dare you to take certain shots and beat us.

Which, uh … is exactly what has happened against every high-major opponent. Per KenPom, only four high-major teams give up a higher percentage of opponent points from 3 than NC State does.

Saturday, then, was more of the same.

NC State started the game by sagging off Council like he had something contagious, with Wade even acknowledging after the game that “we were guarding him (from) the paint.” Sometimes, that much open space can rattle shooters, get them in their heads … but considering Council tied his previous career-high of four made 3s in the game’s first 15 minutes, he clearly wasn’t bothered.

“My scout team,” Council joked, “does that to me in practice.”

Wade said that once Council made his third 3, “that was kind of our line of demarcation,” after which the Wolfpack adjusted. And though Council didn’t have nearly as many catch-and-shoot 3s from then on, the Wolfpack still intentionally went under ball screens against Council, giving him more than enough space to line up a rim that must’ve looked wider than a hula hoop.

There was no better example than in OT, when Council made his final 3 out of a ball-screen situation; by the time Council elevated to shoot, his primary defender on the play, NC State forward Darrion Williams, still had his foot on the elbow.

“We just didn’t do good enough,’ Williams said, “adjusting as a team.”

Not nearly. And though Self agreed that NC State’s strategy against Council was “a sound philosophy based on his numbers coming in,” a performance like that is the kind that sends everyone back to the drawing board.

“You look at everything,” Wade added, “when somebody scores 36 on you.”

This far into the season — and given NC State’s roster construction — it probably isn’t viable for the Wolfpack to completely alter their defensive approach. As good as starting center Ven-Allen Lubin has been offensively, including eight straight double-digit scoring games, he has some inherent defensive limitations at just 6 feet 8. Beyond him, Wade’s roster is littered with the sort of long, athletic wings who should excel in a scheme that switches. The first half Saturday, in which Kansas shot 11 of 35 overall and looked entirely out of sync, provided a good glimpse of how Wade’s defense can be effective.

Can.

It just hasn’t been that way on any sort of consistent basis.

And on a night when NC State’s typically stellar offense — which ranks in the top 20 nationally in adjusted efficiency, per KenPom — wasn’t quite to its usual standard, especially from deep? That defensive slippage was enough to cost the Wolfpack a game they couldn’t afford to lose.

“I don’t think that every game’s a referendum,” Wade said, “but we certainly gotta start winning some of these.”

The problem is, there aren’t many games of consequence left on NC State’s nonconference schedule. Next up is Ole Miss, a game that looked like it would move the needle in the preseason … before the Rebels dropped four straight against high-major competition.

If there is a bright side, it’s that unlike in past seasons, ACC play actually offers NC State plenty of consequential opportunities. Wade’s team is slated to play nine league games against top-50 KenPom teams, many of which will turn out as Quad-1 and Quad-2 affairs. Stack enough of those, and NC State’s NCAA Tournament resume will be perfectly fine.

The point being, there’s time.

But given the Wolfpack’s defensive issues to date, NC State’s margin of error the rest of the way simply isn’t anywhere near what those in the program — and what most in college basketball — thought it would be.

At this point, NC State doesn’t need a reckoning or any grandiose proclamations.

It just needs to start beating good teams. And soon.