Kevin Keatts reveals the most important thing NC State has done this offseason

NC State returned to the NCAA Tournament this past March for the first time since Kevin Keatts’ first season back in 2017-2018. Now, in order to get back into the dance, he realizes the challenges that the Wolfpack will face in trying to accomplish that.

Keatts joined 99.9 The Fan last week in order to discuss those hurdles. To get back into March Madness, he says there’s a lot of connecting going on in Raleigh with how many new faces that they have coming into their program for next season.

“We went out and got eight new faces, seven transfers and one freshman,” Keatts said. “As anybody will tell you in basketball? One of the biggest things that we’ve been able to try to do this summer is to try to develop as much chemistry as we can with this group of guys.”

“We’ve got five guys returning, two starters in D.J. Burns and Casey Morsell. I’m still trying to learn everybody’s name. I’m only joking when I say that. But it’s a good bunch of guys,” said Keatts. “One of the biggest things we’ve done so far is just learning how to compete hard. To play the way we want to play, and, hopefully, a lot of things will fall in place for us.”

The Wolfpack had a lot to replace this summer considering their two leading scores, Terquavion Smith and Jarkel Joiner, moved on after both averaging 17-plus points per game.

That’s where the transfer portal came in for them. In total, NC State brought in seven transfers including Kansas’ MJ Rice, North Carolina A&T’s Kam Woods, Butler’s Jayden Taylor, Arizona State’s DJ Horne, and Missouri’s Mohamed Diarra.

Dennis Parker, a Top-25 SF and the No. 2 recruit out of Virginia, will also be playing for Keatts next season.

With how roster construction is done today in college sports, a lack of familiarity isn’t anything new. Even so, Keatts knows that they all need to get acclimated with one another, and quickly, if they want to reach the postseason for a second straight year.

Keatts continues self-reflection, wants to become better coach at NC State

If you attended NC State as a freshman during the 2018-19 school year and graduated in 2022? You never saw your school participate in an NCAA Tournament game. Thankfully, Kevin Keatts righted the ship and brought NC State to the Big Dance for the first time in five years. Even still, the Wolfpack barely snuck in as an 11-seed and battled on the bubble for much of the year.

In all, ’23 is considered a success, especially compared to recent seasons. But, for Coach Keatts, his self-evaluation process hasn’t changed despite having a drastically better season this year as compared to last. At his summer press conference recently, Keatts explained that process.

“Yeah but, you know, that doesn’t change my self-reflection. I do the same thing every year. I kind of get away and see how I can improve as a coach. And also how we can improve the program. And so I’ve done some of that and we’ll continue to do that.”

Keatts continued saying that he likes where the program is going.

“We are on track, I like I like our group. You know, we stubbed our toe for whatever reason it may be. We can look at bad luck, we can look at injuries, we can call it just lost games. Whatever you want to call it. But, at the end of the day, I think I got a good job of getting things back in the direction that we wanted to be.”

Keatts then answered a question about the long-term trajectory of the program and how he sees the team growing from year to year. His answer:

“Well I just I want us to continue to evolve as a program, where we’re consistent every year. Now the challenges of that is tougher when we were returning seven or eight guys. And you could bring in classes of four or five freshmen. And freshmen have become sophomores and sophomores become juniors.

“I think that would help. But we’ve got to find our niche in an era of transfers to be able to stay consistent. And that’s one of the hardest things that all coaches will have to do now. We’re trying to figure out how to build a successful program and culture.”