How Kevin Keatts-coached teams have done at the NCAA Tournament

NC State is back in the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time since it went in four consecutive years from 2012-2015 under coach Mark Gottfried. The 11th-seeded Pack will play No. 6 seed Texas Tech on Thursday night, March 21, in Pittsburgh. 

For seventh-year coach Kevin Keatts, this is his second time with consecutive trips to the Big Dance in his career — he went three straight seasons from 2016 through 2018. While Keatts has been in the tournament before, the head man has yet to win a game on college basketball’s biggest stage. 

Here’s a look at how Keatts’ teams have done in the NCAA Tournament. 

2016: 13-seed UNC Wilmington vs. 4-seed Duke

Keatts’ first trip to the NCAA Tournament matched him with a future rival in Duke after UNCW won the 2016 Colonial Athletic Association tournament in his second season. It ended in a 93-85 loss, but the Seahawks put up a fight against the Blue Devils. 

UNCW held a 43-40 lead at halftime, but Duke went on a 14-3 run to open the second half to make a double-digit lead early in the second half. Though the Blue Devils took a big lead, UNCW came back to cut the deficit to 5 points with just under five minutes to play, but Duke was able to hold the Seahawks off. 

Craig Ponder paced UNCW with 22 points, while Duke had a trio with 20 or more points — Grayson Allen and Mason Plumlee had 23 each, and Brandon Ingram had 20. 

2017: 12-seed UNCW vs. 5-seed Virginia

After Keatts led the Seahawks to back-to-back CAA titles, his UNCW squad was paired up with another ACC foe, Virginia. And this time around, the Seahawks hung around with the Cavaliers. 

UNCW was able to cut the deficit to 2 points with less than a minute to play with a quick 5-0 burst, but Virginia’s Marial Shayok answered with a layup to push the ‘Hoos’ lead to survive in Orlando, Fla. Virginia held on for a 76-71 win over UNCW, in what was Keatts’ final game as a mid-major coach. 

Chris Flemmings led the Seahawks with 18 points and 9 rebounds, while London Perrantes paced the Cavaliers with 24 points. 

2018: 9-seed NC State vs. 8-seed Seton Hall

Keatts made his third NCAA Tournament trip in a row during his first year at NC State. It was NC State’s first trip to the Big Dance in three seasons after Keatts led the Pack to a 21-12 mark. 

The Wolfpack, though, could not pull off Keatts’ first NCAA Tournament win against the Pirates. Seton Hall beat NC State 94-83 in a high-scoring affair that featured a fast-tempo attack. 

NC State trailed by 10 at the half, but it was able to cut it to a 3-point deficit midway through the second half. But the Wolfpack’s scoring attack rested on Allerik Freeman’s shoulders and he could not get the red and white over the hump. 

Freeman scored 36 points with 6 made three-pointers in the loss for the Wolfpack. Torin Dorn added 18 and Lennard Freeman scored 13 off the bench.

2023: 11-seed NC State vs. 6-seed Creighton

In the Wolfpack’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in five years, NC State struggled to defend Creighton’s 7-foot-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner, who scored 31 points, in a 72-63 win for the Bluejays. 

Though Kalkbrenner dominated the inside with foul trouble to the Pack’s bigs, NC State held a 7-point lead in the second half. But that evaporated down the stretch. 

Terquavion Smith led the Pack with 32 points, while Jarkel Joiner had 13. The rest of the team was in single figures for the contest. Jack Clark added 10 rebounds in the defeat. 

Though it was another first-round exit, Keatts helped engineer a turnaround from an 11-21 season the year before and turned it into an NCAA Tournament appearance.

2024: 11-seed NC State vs. 6-seed Texas Tech

For the first time since Keatts won back-to-back CAA titles, he guided NC State to its first ACC Tournament championship in nearly 36 years with five wins in as many days. It set up a favorable matchup with the Red Raiders, who lack size in the interior, a spot where the Pack has that with graduate forward DJ Burns Jr.

Tipoff is set for 9:40 p.m. on March 21 between NC State and Texas Tech at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. The game will be televised on CBS.