For NC State men’s basketball head coach Kevin Keatts, this stretch to end the regular season is by far one of the most crucial for his career.
That much was made clear when the Wolfpack lost its sixth game in a row, this time falling to Pitt, a team that hasn’t beaten the Pack since the 2013-14 season. With the loss, NC State is dead last in the ACC’s hierarchy.
In order to avoid ending the season as the worst team in the ACC, Keatts needs to win several of his last five regular-season games. But at 3-12 in conference play, Keatts is playing for more than just the ACC standings: his job.
With two games in the next week coming against two of the bottom four teams in the league, the pressure from the outside is mounting up, especially after losing to a Pitt team that is 5-10 in the ACC.
“When you win, everybody loves you,” Keatts said in the weekly ACC coaches call. “It’s the best thing in the world. Sometimes when you lose a game it feels like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. What happens is every coach is a competitor and every player is a competitor and people are upset that you’re losing. The coaches are the worst. If you’re upset, then how do you think I feel?”
As of right now, this Wolfpack team is misery. The Pack has its worst overall winning percentage since the 1993-94 season and its worst conference record since the 1995-96 season. Every game seems like the same story: go down early, play well in spurts and get back into the game, then choke it all away in the closing minutes of the second half.
At some point, the excuses have to stop. Yes, as I wrote in early January, the injuries in the frontcourt decimated this season. You can’t expect to be very good when you lose the player that everyone assumed would be the team’s most important entering the season. But the frontcourt isn’t the reason for blown games. At some point, you have to buckle in, realize this is the roster and make adjustments. And while Keatts acknowledged this today in the coaches call, it just hasn’t happened yet.
“Everybody has to lock in,” Keatts said. “Our roster is what our roster is.”
This column certainly isn’t a call for Keatts’ job. If you know me, you know that I love him as a person and believe that he has experienced the worst possible luck of any coach I can think of off the top of my head. He’s lost arguably his most important player in Devon Daniels and redshirt junior forward Manny Bates in back-to-back seasons. If the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t happened, Keatts would have more than one NCAA Tournament appearance. That doesn’t even touch on Jalen Lecque, Josh Hall or the other injuries this year.
Beyond the numerous excuses he could give, Keatts has the public backing of Debbie Yow and Boo Corrigan, he’s a great people person and media presence, and he’s a fantastic recruiter — as noted by Robert Dillingham’s commitment, the ninth overall recruit in the 2023 class.
However, these excuses don’t forgive the late-game play-calling. They certainly don’t forgive dropping games to teams like Pitt and Clemson. But most of all, these excuses don’t account for the pure lifelessness this team experiences on a day-to-day basis.
How many times can you recall a time where a coach had this dismal of an outlook for a season and was kept through the next season? Not many. We’ve already seen one coach get dismissed this season in Louisville’s Chris Mack, who had a much more decorated coaching career than Keatts has up to this point. Obviously, the reasons differ, as Mack pretty much lost his locker room completely, but it is important to note.
Further, there’s no telling what the roster will look like next season. One or both of redshirt sophomore guard Dereon Seabron or freshman Terquavion Smith could exit the program via transfer or an NBA move, and senior forward Jericole Hellems is set to graduate.
In order for Keatts to be as secure as possible in his current position, the best possible case would clearly be winning out the rest of the schedule. Last season, after losing four of five matchups, Keatts and the Pack went on to win its last five games in a row, leading to the emergence of Seabron and ending the year on a high note.
Keatts certainly does have a chance to do that. NC State got blown out by UNC-Chapel Hill earlier this year but has a chance at a rivalry revenge game. The Pack was in the recent Wake Forest game until the last four minutes and lost to Florida State by just one possession. It gets all three of those teams, along with basement-dwellers Georgia Tech and Boston College.
How likely is that, though?
Not likely, based on what we’ve seen this season. Realistically, beating Georgia Tech and Boston College could give Keatts some job security, especially if he upsets one of UNC, Wake or Florida State.
This is the most important stretch for Keatts’ job security this season. If it all falls apart, there’s a chance NC State could be looking for a new coach in the offseason. As NC State fans, the best we can do is to support him through this time. It can’t be easy for a coach to hear this noise and to have this pressure mounting on him.
“At some point, we have to move on as coaches,” Keatts said. “I think the kids move on a lot quicker than we do. Coaches, it probably takes us almost until the next time we get in practice until we realize we have to move onto the next game and prepare. A lot of times kids forget a lot quicker than we do.”
If nothing else, we know the care that Keatts feels for each and every member of this roster is unmatched.
“I try to keep our guys locked in and focused,” Keatts said. “I think as a coach, we owe it to each individual kid who is on our team to give them everything, whether we lose one of our key players or not. My focus is to teach and love on these kids and try to get better and not feel sorry for ourselves because nobody else will. That’s one of the things that we’ve done. We know that we’re undermanned going into most games. But what keeps me going is that our guys have completely fought in every game. That doesn’t mean we’ve done everything right, but we’re battling with a limited roster and I’m proud of these guys for our fight.”
