Move aside, Duke and Carolina. The state of North Carolina is under new management.
Just one look at the Final Four of both the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will let you know what the preeminent basketball program in the state is: the NC State Wolfpack.
After over 30 years of suffering as the little brother to the state’s blue bloods, NC State has finally reclaimed its throne atop the state pecking order and is here to stay.
Since the program’s glory days of the 1970s and ‘80s — winning the national championship in 1974 and 1983 — NC State men’s basketball has gone through over 40 years of pain and longing in trying to reach the mountaintop once again.
Sure, there have been highlights, such as multiple Sweet 16 appearances and a few exciting regular-season wins here and there, but the Wolfpack has been overshadowed by its in-state rivals for the last few decades, which has made the championship drought that much more agonizing.
Coach K and Roy Williams are no longer on the benches in Durham and Chapel Hill, but even after the changing of the guard in those respective programs, it looked for a couple of years like the status quo would remain the same. Both programs made the Final Four in 2022 — with UNC beating Duke in a head-to-head matchup — while Duke won the ACC Championship in its first year under Jon Scheyer in 2023. Meanwhile, NC State still struggled to grow out of the “little brother” role.
But that chapter of history is over. Despite going a combined 1-2 against its Tobacco Road rivals in the 2023-24 regular season, the Wolfpack has flipped the script in March, beating UNC in the ACC Championship and beating Duke not once but twice, first in the ACC Tournament and second to return to the Final Four.
That signifies a changing of the guard both in North Carolina and in the ACC. The sleeping giant that is NC State has been awoken, and both the program and its fanbase are more than ready to reclaim its spot among the college basketball blue bloods.
Head coach Kevin Keatts has arrived and proven himself as the man for the job in Raleigh. Proving all the doubters wrong, Keatts did the unthinkable by taking his team to a place where no NC State coach has been since the late Jim Valvano.
And if you thought this year was just a fluke, think again. The landscape of college sports has changed dramatically with the introduction of NIL and the transfer portal, and Keatts has proven that he can adapt and is the best-suited for the future among the three Triangle basketball coaches.
Of Keatts’ seven years in Raleigh, his most successful seasons have come when his teams were led predominantly by transfers. In his first season, the Wolfpack was led by the likes of Allerik Freeman en route to an improbable NCAA Tournament berth. In 2022-23, Jarkel Joiner and DJ Burns, along with Terquavion Smith, led the Pack to an NCAA Tournament appearance.
And of course, there’s the 2023-24 season, one in which every player in the starting five and nearly everyone in the regular rotation is a transfer. What did that team do? Only become the first team to ever win five games in five days to win the ACC Tournament, win the program’s first ACC championship since 1987 and go to the program’s first Final Four since that legendary 1983 season.
The point is that Keatts is the transfer portal master, and moving forward, he is the coach that is most well-equipped for success in the state of North Carolina for the changing landscape of college basketball.
While this changing of the guard is a new phenomenon for men’s basketball, this has been an ongoing development for the Wolfpack women, and Sunday’s Final Four berth is the exclamation point.
For years, NC State has been the top women’s basketball program in North Carolina. While neither Duke nor Carolina have won an ACC championship since 2013, the Wolfpack recently won three consecutive titles from 2020-2022 and just played in its fourth title game in the last five seasons. Not only that, but the Wolfpack women have five Sweet 16 appearances since the 2018 season. Duke and Carolina have combined for three in that time.
Wes Moore is not only the best coach in the state, but also in the conference, and he finally got the monkey off his back by taking the Pack back to the Final Four for the first time since 1998. NC State has the best coach in the ACC, the best venue for basketball in the ACC, and it also has the best program in the ACC.
Wolfpack fans have been desperate for a return to the glory days of NC State basketball for decades. The time has come. The Pack has arrived. No matter how each team’s magical tournament run ends, NC State basketball runs North Carolina and is here to stay.
