A fresh chapter for NC State basketball starts Monday night, and Justin Gainey is the one steering it.
Gainey is back in Raleigh after his own playing days with the Wolfpack from 1996-00 under Herb Sendek. In that stretch, he played in 128 games, started 103 of them, and built a reputation as a defensive force. His 190 career steals still rank fifth in program history.
Now he returns with a different job and a different kind of weight on his shoulders. Gainey arrives with 20 years of Division 1 coaching experience, including the last five seasons at Tennessee under Rick Barnes, where he became one of the most sought-after assistants in the sport.
His first regular-season test comes Tuesday night at home against Campbell as NC State opens the season. The Wolfpack already showed some early signs in exhibition play, going 2-0 with a 77-73 win over Mississippi State on Oct. 18 and a 130-66 rout of Lenoir-Rhyne on Oct. 24.
The Mississippi State game gave Gainey a glimpse of the kind of connected group he wants to build. NC State trailed 71-65 with 2:50 left before finishing on a 12-2 run to steal the win. Paul McNeil Jr. and Preston Edmead each scored 16 points in the comeback.
“We’re at a timeout, and I look over at Paul McNeil sitting in my seat and hearing his message to the guys. Everybody locked in,” Gainey said.
“When I saw that, I didn’t know what the outcome of the game was going to be, but I felt good about what we had been doing from day one. What we had been messaging, what we had been building from a culture standpoint.”
That kind of buy-in matters even more for a roster that looks very different from last season. McNeil is one of just three returning players.
He tied a program record last year with 105 made three-pointers and led the conference with a 42.7 three-point percentage. Ven-Allen Lubin is back too after pacing the ACC with a 66.8 shooting percentage.
Along with Zymichal Wilkins, those three players account for 33.3% of the team’s scoring, 30.9% of its rebounding, 10.9% of its assists, and 28.0% of its minutes from a year ago. That core gives Gainey a starting point as he tries to push State toward contention in the ACC.
The Wolfpack were picked eighth in the preseason conference poll, behind teams including Duke, Virginia, UNC, and Clemson. Gainey isn’t putting much stock in that, and the exhibition results only reinforced how much work still lies ahead.
“In all of those games, we know we didn’t play our best basketball,” Gainey said. “We have a long way to go from a developmental standpoint and just getting better, cleaning up a lot of different things… We’re always going to be a hungry group. We’re always going to be looking at ways where we can get better.”
NC State and Campbell will meet for the 14th time Monday, with the Wolfpack holding a 12-1 edge in the series. Tip-off is set for 7:30 pm on the ACC Network Extra.
In Other News...
NC State Sent A Strong Message In Its First Game After Change
The first game after the change could have gone sideways early, but NC State settled in and left with a convincing 31-10 win over Cal. The offense looked stuck in the first half, then came out of the break with a better rhythm and turned halftime adjustments into a flurry of second-half touchdowns, while the defense kept the Bears from finding any answer after intermission.
Charlton Warrens unit set the tone with a second-half shutout, giving the Wolfpack the kind of response that usually matters most in a transition game. Interim coach Todd Goebbel said the group stayed locked in on fundamentals, and for NC State, the bigger takeaway may be how quickly the team translated a difficult opening into a clean finish. [Read more 🡒]
NC State Opener Will Show If This Wolfpack Identity Is Real
As NC State gets ready to open the season against Campbell, the early read on this Wolfpack team is less about the opponent than about whether the habits coach Gainey has been talking about are actually taking hold. Gainey, back in Raleigh and coming off three exhibition games, has spent the last few weeks sorting through a rotation and weighing how the group fits together, with the opener offering the first real chance to see how much of that work translates once the games count.
Campbell brings a fresh challenge of its own with first-year Division I coach Jimmie Williams and a roster that does not have much Division I experience, but NC States bigger concern is internal. The Wolfpack know they need to be better on the glass, especially after the exhibitions exposed issues with rebounding and second chances, and that area could say plenty about how real this teams identity is from the start. [Read more 🡒]
NC State Finally Gave Fans A Reason To Believe Again
For a program that has spent too much of this season searching for something to hang onto, Saturday offered a cleaner kind of hope. NC State beat Cal 31-10 at home, and the win had the feel of a team finally settling in after a shaky start, with the offense finding a rhythm and the defense doing what it has too often been asked to do on its own.
CJ Bailey gave the Wolfpack steady quarterback play, Davion Gause helped tilt the game on the ground, and the defense smothered Cal for long stretches, allowing points in only one quarter. Popo Aguirres 16 tackles stood out in a performance that looked more like a reset than a fluke, even if the bigger question now is whether NC State can carry that edge into the next stretch. [Read more 🡒]