NC State women’s basketball head coach Wes Moore was on the plane ride back with NC State men’s basketball after it won the ACC Championship. A week later, Pack men’s basketball head coach Kevin Keatts was in attendance for the women’s Round of 32 game at Reynolds Coliseum.

After the women beat Tennessee in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, both coaches locked in on their own teams but watched each other’s journeys from afar. Last season, both squads made the Final Four in the same year for the first time in school history.

But before those runs, both teams faced adversity near the end of the season that left most questioning if either team could even compete in the postseason.

After starting the year unranked, the women jumped into the top five of the AP Poll before December after early-season wins over two top-three opponents and stayed there most of the year. But after a two-game stretch at the end of February in which it lost back-to-back games to unranked Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, the Wolfpack dropped from No. 6 to No. 12 in the AP Poll.

Moore said he had people at lunch coming up to him asking what was wrong with his team and if they could turn it around. Moore did turn it around — his squad only lost one more game before falling to eventual national champion South Carolina in the Final Four.

For the men, all hope was lost after the team dropped 10 of its last 14 games of the regular season. The Pack entered the ACC Tournament as a 10-seed, having to win five games in five days to make the NCAA Tournament, which had never been done in the ACC’s history.

So naturally, Keatts’ squad became the first school in conference history to claim the league’s championship having to win five straight games while guaranteeing a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Then the men became the sixth 11-seed to make the Final Four before falling to Purdue in the national semifinal.

Now that both coaches have had six months to reflect on their respective runs, there is a shared feeling of immense gratitude for what they accomplished.

“This year was magical,” Moore said. “Just everybody bought in. Great culture, chemistry. I think that was part of the reason we kept winning. We just didn’t want it to end. We were having a great time. And then for the men to also get on that run. Coach Keatts, I think the world of him. So it made it even sweeter that we could both do that.”

The relationship between Keatts and Moore is a special one. It’s a relationship bound by shared strife, but also by a shared mission.

“Our team and their team have a great relationship, and we really support them as much as we can,” Keatts said. “It was an unbelievable run. And when you’re going through it, you don’t necessarily get a chance to respect how great of a run it was. You don’t fully get to respect or understand how special a run it was until you get out of it.”

For Moore and Keatts, it was special to share that ride together because of how close a relationship they have. During the season, they talk a few times a week, asking each other questions about their teams and if they have any advice to share.

“Coach Keatts is what a coach is supposed to be,” Moore said. “He’s a mentor. He treats those guys like they’re his sons, and then to see them be rewarded with the Final Four run made it special.”

When Moore was in Washington D.C. to witness the men win their first ACC Championship since 1987, Keatts said Moore was even more excited than he was that they won the title. It was just one moment that highlights the special bond the two share.

“Wes and I have a really great relationship,” Keatts said. “Just to see them have success in the tournament. And for Wes, he’s been right there to break through and get to the Final Four. I think it was a tremendous deal.”

Not only do Moore and Keatts share a strong relationship, but players from both sides share a tight bond. Before last season, Keatts could tell how close the two programs were from a moment that happened at “Primetime with the Pack”, a preseason event where the two teams got together.

It was during the dunk contest when senior guard Breon Pass threw a pass off the backboard that senior guard Saniya Rivers dunked. Keatts remembers that his team was just as excited to see her dunk as her own teammates.

“Both programs have built a strong culture of winning,” Keatts said. “I think that really, we kind of feed off each other when it comes to that.”

And when one team succeeds, it motivates the other to do the same. During their Final Four runs, they fed off each other’s success. After the men won a postseason game, they would get calls from the women and vice versa.

“I know our players enjoy a great relationship,” Moore said. “We know how hard it is, and so we’re able to relate, understand what each other’s going through. And I think it’s the same way with the players.”

The good thing for both coaches is that they have key returning players who went on those runs last season. The men return graduate guard Michael O’Connell, senior guard Jayden Taylor and senior forward Ben Middlebrooks along with a few other players who were on the squad last year.

“I’ve always said that coaches, we will teach the program,” Keatts said. “[The players] have to enforce our culture and show what our culture is about. And so I think those seven dudes, those five returning scholarship guys and the two guys who are walk-ons, have done a really good job pushing our culture on this group here.”

Moore returns three of his five starters in senior guards Saniya Rivers and Aziaha James and graduate guard Madison Hayes. But both teams also have new faces who will have to learn the playstyle and culture.

“It’s like having extra assistant coaches out there,” Moore said. “They know your system. They know your culture, how you want to do things.”

Now that both coaches have been on college basketball’s grandest stage, they have stories and lessons they can use for the rest of their coaching careers. Moore and Keatts will command a certain level of respect now that they’ve been to the Final Four.

They learned a lot from their respective journeys, and this is what they said when asked about the biggest lesson they learned from making a deep postseason run.

“To enjoy the ride,” Moore said. “As a coach, sometimes we probably take things too seriously or maybe make it more of a grind than it needs to be. So you got to have fun. And that’s what that group did last year when it was time to go to work. It was time to be focused. But also you gotta have a little fun along the way and enjoy the journey.”

For Keatts, he has a run in his back pocket — one that is likely to go down as one of the most improbable Final Four appearances of all time — that he can use for the rest of his career.

“Anything is possible when a collective of guys get on the same page,” Keatts said. “That’s what happened with us. We had everybody on the same page. There were no egos throughout the run. If you have any egos through the run, you don’t make the run. But we won nine elimination games because we had no egos. Everybody was playing for NC State. Everybody was playing for each other.”