For years, Wolfpack fans have been asking to see more passion and fight out of their head coach. They’ve felt like NC State men’s basketball has never been tough enough to face some of the more physical teams in college basketball, and the blame for that has always fallen on the shoulders of head coach Kevin Keatts.
Well, over the past few months, Keatts has answered the questions on whether he has that fire to be a college basketball head coach. He has already been ejected twice this season, and his latest against Wake Forest ignited a second-half comeback for the Wolfpack. His squad put on a defensive clinic in the last 20 minutes and was the much tougher team throughout.
“I’m tired of this s—, man,” Keatts said. “I’m tired of people talking about how we ain’t tough enough. We were pretty damn tough today, right?”
When building this squad in the off-season, there’s no doubt Keatts wanted to create a more physical team that never backed down. He brought in guys with a “dog mentality,” like graduate guard DJ Horne and junior forwards Ben Middlebrooks and Mohamed Diarra.
All three made a huge impact against the Demon Deacons, with Horne being the leading scorer, making tough shots and getting to the rim. Middlebrooks dominated in the paint in the second half, scoring 12 of his 14 points, including a massive and-1 where he let out a huge scream and bumped a Wake Forest player.
Diarra added eight points and 13 rebounds and showed the fire his head coach instilled in him when he went head-to-head with the Wake Forest player Middlebrooks got into an altercation with. Diarra was ejected from the game and Middlebrooks was assessed a technical foul, but this is the kind of toughness Wolfpack fans have always wanted to see.
“Even though it was a technical and an ejection, that’s what we need, that grit, that toughness,” said graduate guard Casey Morsell. “It helped us win the game.”
If you didn’t think these players played hard for Keatts, it was pretty evident after the Wake Forest game that they did. But they don’t just compete for their head coach — they embody the mentality he has instilled.
“At the end of the day, [Keatts] is the life of our team,” Middlebrooks said. “Seeing him stand up for us and put it out on the line for us … it helped.”
NC State is just coming off a home loss to Virginia Tech where it gave up 51 points in the second half, but the Pack still sits in second place in the ACC. On the same day, Duke was upset by Pittsburgh, but no one thinks the Blue Devils’ season is over because of one loss.
Many might say Duke has more quality wins than NC State and it can afford to lose a couple more games, which makes this upcoming stretch for the Wolfpack so important. Keatts’ squad gets an opportunity to prove just how tough his team is as it goes on the road for its next two games.
NC State has two shots at the elusive win this week. It goes on the road to face Virginia, who has the nation’s longest home winning streak, and then travels to Syracuse, which is amid a resurgence under first-year head coach Adrian Autry.
It goes without saying these are massive games for the Wolfpack’s resume and for Keatts to prove himself to Wolfpack nation. NC State has yet to lose a road conference game, and if it can pull off the sweep this week a lot more people will be talking about the Wolfpack.
“We were the least talked about team that was 4-1; we were the least talked about team that was 3-0,” Keatts said. “Our area has really good basketball, and I’m talking about Duke, Carolina and Wake, and I told our team, ‘We’re the least talked about out of everybody, but when you pull up the stats, we got the same record as everybody.’”
This is the most important week of the season because if NC State wins both games, all of a sudden it has two quad 1 wins and is 5-0 on the road in the ACC. Then if it fails to win either, fans will hit the panic button, and everyone’s finger will be pointed at one man.
