One year ago Mark Gottfried was coaching out the season after leading the NC State Wolfpack to a second consecutive losing season. Not only was it a losing season, it was an embarrassing season, they lost by 51 at North Carolina and went 4-14 in the ACC. But, to hear the national media talk, Tim Brando, Jay Bilas, Doris Burke all said Mark Gottfried was the best that NC State could do. They all believed that 2 Sweet Sixteen runs should have been enough to survive 2 seasons where NC State wasn’t competitive in ACC play.
They all bemoaned that NC State fans were unrealistic in their expectations and with the Blues not only within the same conference but within the same geographical location, that NC State wasn’t a good enough job to do better.
Turn the calendar ahead one year. Debbie Yow didn’t have far to go to find the man that she thought could compete against UNC and Duke. She turned to a young up and coming coach who had turned around UNC-Wilmington, Kevin Keatts.
What Keatts has brought to Raleigh is a style of play that is fun and exciting to watch. Keatts came in and and said that his teams were going to have a lot of dunks and shoot a ton of three’s. Now, at the beginning of the year, expectations were not high. A lot of fans wanted a .500 overall record. They understood that the roster had a lot of questions. Even at the beginning of the season, when grad transfer Al Freeman would play hero ball, you saw glimpses of what this team could do when Keatts got his players in.
Then, something happened in January. Keatts stopped starting 2 bigs and went to what he knows and what he wants. He started playing the 4 guards and 1 big. Since then NC State is 10-5 with wins over Duke, UNC, Clemson, and Florida State who were all ranked at the time NC State played them. Now, NC State is 20-9 overall and 10-6 in the ACC. The most intriguing part of this is that this is a hybrid of what Keatts whats to run offensively and defensively. You see flashes of what he wants to do, you see parts of games where he presses full court and forces turnovers. But you also see the flaws with this team.
NC State is not a good rebounding team and give up a lot of offensive rebounds. NC State doesn’t have a rim protector that the Keatts system needs. However, he has allowed Torin Dorn to thrive in this system. Dorn is athletic enough to cause 4’s problems and big enough to bully 3’s. Keatts has found what Omer Yurtseven is comfortable doing and putting him in the best position to succeed.
To those who stated that Mark Gottfried was the best NC State could do. That the NC State fanbase was unreasonable with their expectations. How’s that crow taste? Or are you still under the assumption that this could have been achieved under Gottfried? People need to realize that coaching means something in college basketball. Mark Gottfried had his moments, but overall he was not a very good coach. Kevin Keatts, however CAN coach, not only can he coach, he can recruit. Kevin Keatts is young hungry and he isn’t scared. So, maybe it wasn’t the fans that were unrealistic.
Maybe it was the media’s love affair with Mark Gottfried that blinded their eyes when it came to his coaching ability. So, next time the media starts in on a fan base when it comes to coaching hires, maybe they need to look at themselves and find out why they feel that the coach needs to stay…..
