From the moment he was introduced as NC State’s men’s basketball coach, Will Wade hasn’t been afraid to give blunt comments about the state of his program — whether that was his expectations of a reckoning and a NCAA Tournament berth when he took the job or crisp criticisms when his team struggled.

And it was no different after the Wolfpack’s 68-66 loss to Texas in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four in Dayton, Ohio on Tuesday night. NC State finished the season 20-14 and lost eight of its last 10 games, a sour note for a program that was riding his in early February.

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“Disappointing end to a pretty disappointing season for us, the way I look at it,” Wade said. “We haven't been very good in close games. We hadn't earned the right to win in close games and our season ended very similar to the reason we're sitting in Dayton.”

NC State was undone down the stretch in a number of critical losses, and Tuesday’s game was no different.

“You are who you are in pressure moments, and we tried to mask some stuff and we couldn't do it,” Wade said. “That's why we're here, and that's why we're heading home.”

NC State trailed throughout the second half, falling behind 64-56 with 1:42 remaining. But the Wolfpack staged a furious comeback on hot shooting and a pressing defense that flustered the Longhorns down the stretch.

Paul McNeil Jr. drilled back-to-back corner 3-pointers to close to 64-62 with 1:02 left. After a basket by Texas’ Tramon Mark with 37 seconds left, Darrion Williams made a 3-pointer to cut the Wolfpack deficit to 66-65.Tre Holloman tied the game for the first time when he made one of two free throws with 18 seconds left. 

But Marks made a tough 19-foot jumper with 1.1 seconds remaining to put Texas back in the lead, and Williams’ desperate 3-point try was blocked at the buzzer.

The Wolfpack roster, which Wade turned over nearly completely in the offseason, had seven seniors, including key contributors such as point guard Quadir Copeland, center Ven-Allen Lubin, Holloman and Williams, the ACC Preseason Player of the Year. Williams didn’t make any of the three postseason All-ACC teams. Copeland was a third-team selection.

“We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to reset for next year,” Wade said. “We didn’t have the year we wanted to have. We’ve got a lot of things that we need to make sure that we’re in better shape for moving forward.” 

Wade said that work would begin as soon as the team returned to Raleigh and that his focus was on making sure “we get the right guys to come in and help us win in the future.”

The Wolfpack thought they’d put together an NCAA Tournament-caliber roster in the offseason, including players identified by the program’s metrics as likely to perform in bigger roles, but NC State was done in by a lack of positional size, particularly in the post, and evolved into a jump-shooting team that ran hot and cold.

“We’re going to be better,” Wade said. “We put this together pretty quickly. We didn’t spend as much time on a couple things. We just looked at some analytics. The personalities and some of that stuff is very, very important. We’re going to do much more due diligence this year, and we’ll have a better mixture of things moving forward.”

In the transfer portal era, it’s difficult to project who will return and who will depart. But the Wolfpack seem to have building blocks in McNeil, a sophomore who shot 42.7% from 3-point range on a team-high 246 attempts, and freshman Matt Able, who averaged 8.8 points in 21 minutes off the bench.

Wade, who denied interest in a potential LSU opening during the ACC Tournament, earned more than $100,000 in performance bonuses in the first year of his six-year contract. Wade earned $37,500 for winning 10 conference games of 18 regular-season games, $25,000 for an appearance in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals and $50,000 for reaching the NCAA Tournament First Four.

NC State went 19-12 in the regular season and earned the No. 7 seed in the ACC Tournament. The Wolfpack beat Pittsburgh in the second round of the ACC Tournament and losing to second-seeded Virginia in the quarterfinal.