How NC State coach Wes Moore plans to sustain success, even after stars’ departures

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wes Moore wants more.

Always has, always will. That’s why back in 2013, before he accepted NC State’s offer to become its women’s basketball coach, he wasn’t dissuaded by replacing program legend Kay Yow or by the task of restoring the Wolfpack to their former glory — or even by the plethora of not-so-subtle phone calls from peers reminding him how difficult doing these things would be. “I had coaches coming up to me that summer,” Moore recalled during ACC media day, “saying, are you nuts?” But Moore saw the potential, and he pounced on the opportunity. All he’s done since? Take the Wolfpack to their first Elite Eight since Yow’s last trip in the late 1990s.

Same deal this summer, navigating the transfer portal. Did NC State, winners of back-to-back-to-back conference tournaments, necessarily need another guard? No. But then former top-three recruit Saniya Rivers became available. Moore had already heavily recruited her out of high school, and she’s a 6-foot-1 athletic specimen who can dunk (!!), and, well …

“OK,” Moore jokes, “maybe we need a guard.”

Always onto the next. So it should come as no surprise that Moore is keeping that same mindset as it relates to his program at large, coming off arguably its most successful…