Will Wade, NC State Add First Team All-Big 12 Superstar

NC State is rebuilding its basketball program quickly under first-year head coach Will Wade.

The former VCU, LSU, and McNeese State head coach took over the Wolfpack earlier this offseason and has built an impressive roster since. On Thursday, he landed arguably his biggest recruit since joining the ACC.

Wade and his staff brought in Darrion Williams, a First Team All-Big 12 performer from last season at Texas Tech. Joe Tipton of On3 broke the news.

He committed to NC State over Kansas, according to Tipton.

Williams is a 6-foot-6, 225-pound forward from Sacramento, California. He began his career at Nevada in 2022-23, starting 30 games and averaging 7.6 points per game. He then made the jump up to the Big 12 and starred for Texas Tech from the beginning. In 2023-24, he started all 33 games, averaging 11.4 points per game and 7.5 rebounds per contest. Williams shot 46% from three-point range in that season.

This past year, he played fewer minutes per game for a talented Tech squad (30.1 MPG) but increased his production offensively. Williams shot 44% from the field on over 12 attempts per game on average. He scored 15.1 points per contest and grabbed 5.5 rebounds per game. Williams made a career-high 48 threes this past season, shooting 34% from downtown.

Wade was let go from a successful five-year tenure with LSU over allegations of recruiting infractions that landed him a ten-game suspension. Since then, Wade went 49-8 at McNeese, with two conference championships and back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament. Prior to his LSU tenure, Wade served as VCU’s head coach from 2015-17 and held the same position at Chattanooga before that.

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