NC State building a ‘winning culture’ after Final Four run with 8 newcomers on roster

CHARLOTTE — Before NC State tips off against USC Upstate on the first Monday of November, the Wolfpack will raise a pair of banners into the Lenovo Center’s rafters. The Pack, which has been waiting for this moment for more than three decades, will hoist an ACC Championship and Final Four appearance into the ceiling of its home arena in front of what is likely to be a packed house. 

While the Wolfpack found a way to win nine straight games, including five in as many days to claim the league tournament title last season, NC State is focused on keeping that momentum going this year. But it will not be an easy task. 

For one, the Pack will compete against a loaded ACC field this season, including No. 1 recruit Cooper Flagg at Duke and the reigning conference player of the year, RJ Davis, is back at North Carolina. And NC State? It has just five scholarship players back from last season’s roster as it added eight new faces, including five from the transfer portal. 

So it will be a tall mountain to climb to defend its conference tournament title, but NC State is confident it is laying the groundwork for its quest during the preseason. The Wolfpack, which boasted the No. 18 transfer portal class nationally, according to the On3 Industry Rankings, with the additions of Bowling Green scorer Marcus Hill, Georgetown wing Dontrez Styles, Louisville guard Mike James and forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Canadian transfer Ismaël Diouf , is working to instill a “winning culture” in Raleigh. 

NC State is doing that by holding the entire team to an elite standard on the Dail Basketball Center practice court. 

“We have a standard of how hard we compete,” NC State coach Kevin Keatts said at ACC Tipoff inside the Hilton Charlotte Uptown on Wednesday afternoon. “Might not win every game at the beginning, but the way we play is different. So we talked about how you can’t take practices off. … We don’t have the ability to waste any practices. We want guys to get better from practice to practice.”

The culture that Keatts has built at NC State showed in its run to the Final Four a year ago. The Pack seemed down and out of any postseason hopes, but he was able to rally the team to have an unprecedented run to winning the ACC Championship. 

As he looks to instill those same habits this season, Keatts is leaning on his returning players that witnessed the fruits of his ideology last season. Graduate guard Michael O’Connell appears to be the Wolfpack’s go-to leader in the locker room, while senior guard Jayden Taylor has an expanded his leadership role on the team this season and senior forward Ben Middlebrooks has an impactful voice in the frontcourt. 

“My job is to teach our program,” Keatts said. “Their job is to tamp down on our culture and who we are and how we play. We’ve got some talented dudes that we brought in, whether it’s the transfer portal or through the high school ranks. … I think our returners are helping us [in teaching how hard we play at NC State.]”

Taylor, who was a self-described lead by example player before this season, has taken a more vocal role over the past few months. And it seems he has a clear hold on what Keatts is looking for within the program as Taylor enters his second season with the Wolfpack. 

The former Butler transfer can relate to the portal players that are in Raleigh this season, and he has a clear message for all of the newcomers on the roster this year. 

“If you’re coming to NC State, non-negotiable is playing hard and just talking every day and being confident,” Taylor said. “You can’t come here if you’re not going to play hard. … If you’re not making shots, how can you impact the game in other ways? How do you get the deflections, rebound? I feel like just competing. That’s the culture we’ve built here.”

That culture that Taylor is defining helped the Wolfpack reach the final weekend of the college basketball season for the first time in 41 years this past March. The Pack has its sights set on returning to the big stage and it wants to cap its next trip on the top of a ladder cutting the nets down. 

But to get there, NC State’s preseason practices will be a key reason why. The Wolfpack doesn’t have a pushover of a non-conference slate with Kansas, Texas, Purdue and either BYU or Ole Miss within the first two months of the year. That will prove whether or not the Wolfpack’s culture and identity has been fully instilled into its new arrivals.