NC State Wolfpack: Keats is Molding His Kind of Team
The NC State Wolfpack are well on their way to looking like a different team.
The NC State Wolfpack are in a transition period. They fired Mark Gottfried before the end of the last season. They replaced him with UNC Wilmington coach Kevin Keatts, who was fresh off of three Colonial titles at the school. Now the roster is turning over too.
Dennis Smith, Jr. was never expected to return for his sophomore season in Raleigh. He leaves for the NBA Draft with a solid lottery grade and should go somewhere in the top ten.
Maverick Rowan also decided to leave the program. The rising junior shooter must have found something he did not like about the new Keatts regime. Otherwise he would seem to have been a useful piece for the Wolfpack to hold on to.
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Keatts is now trying to put his own stamp on the program. His style is the more fast paced style favored by his mentor Rick Pitino at Louisville. That fast pace is built off of pressure defense and not being afraid to use that pressure at any time.
The roster is starting to reflect his preferences as well. He has brought some his Wilmington recruits along to help install things. He also went and found Baylor graduate transfer Al Freeman. The Charlotte native and former Baylor starter was looking for a bigger role after differences emerged with Baylor coach Scott Drew. Freeman is a two guard with a 39% three point percentage over the last two seasons.
Keatts has also tried to win over the existing players. Torin Dorn, the Charlotte transfer, was more or less stuck with State anyway. However Dorn identified the new system as a lot of ‘fun.’ West Virginia transfer Terry Henderson is trying to coax another year for medical reasons out of the NCAA.
Keatts gets an advantage in that this State team should not have been as bad as it was last year. They will be looking to show that to everybody. At the same time, there will be no more watching Smith play basketball like there was this year. Markell Johnson will man the point and everybody will see the ball. Too bad we have to go all the way through football season to see it.