Retention of Patrick Stacy helped NC State form new-look roster

When coach Justin Gainey was hired at NC State, the coaching offices were nearly empty, except for one room.

Gainey was hired April 1 and he brought over Riley Collins from Tennessee to be his director of player development. NC State assistant general manager Patrick Stacy was the lone holdover from the previous coaching staff still working in the Dail Center. The place was a ghost town, especially after some of Will Wade’s former staff packed up their belongings and departed.

The trio attacked preparation for when the transfer portal began April 7 as best they could, and along the way, Stacy’s importance became obvious.

Gainey’s former assistant coach co-worker Amorrow Morgan at Tennessee knew Stacy due to their connection with Loyola of Chicago. Morgan was an assistant coach with the Ramblers from 2021-23, and Stacy is a graduate of the school and was an analytic manager on their 2018 Final Four squad.

Stacy was the Wyoming general manager in 2024-25, and now he’ll get the same opportunity at NC State.

“I didn’t know Patrick at all,” Gainey said. “He [Morgan] raved about him, but I didn’t know him. I was impressed with how hard he worked. How prepared he was. To be able to shift gears and understood my vision as we kind of entered the portal.

“We spent a lot of late nights together, a lot of late-night phone calls. He made himself always available.”

The decision to enhance Stacy’s role became obvious to all at the Dail Center.

Through that process, he was very impressive,” Gainey said. “I started to warm up more to the idea of him being on our staff.”

When Gainey started filling out his staff, the new assistant coaches also took notice of Stacy.

“As I started bringing other guys in and other assistants in, they were able to spend time with him,” Gainey said. “That kind of validated what I was seeing and what I was feeling. It made that decision really easy, to be honest.

“I think he’s a rising star in this business.”

Gainey also talked about the role analytics will take with his coaching this upcoming season. He joked about how much the game has changed since he played at NC State from 1996-00. Back then, the mid-range game was still heavily emphasized, the flex offense was in vogue, and three-point shots had to as close to the arc as possible.

“As a former player of that era, it takes time to kind of adjust to the whole analytics parts of it and the understanding of the mid-range may be not a great shot, right?” Gainey said. “I got a game-winner off of mid-range against Maryland here in the arena. I stopped at the free-throw line and made one, right? It’s hard to tell me hitting mid-range is a bad shot.

“I’ve been hit with enough numbers through the years to kind of be able to implement analytics into my processes, both offensively and defensively.”