3/19/2017 basketball Edit

Kevin Keatts has been winning for decades

Jacey Zembal • TheWolfpackCentral

Writer

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NC State men's basketball head coach Kevin Keatts held his introductory press conference Sunday at Reynolds Coliseum. (Ken Martin/TheWolfpacker.com)

Kevin Keatts once sat in his office at Chatham (Va.) Hargrave Military Academy insisting to a visiting reporter he wasn’t going to go back to college basketball.

That was in the fall of 2009, and he was in the midst of starting another successful season with a team built around future NC State point guard Lorenzo Brown and Arkansas combo guard Mardracus Wade. Keatts had already done the college basketball stint, becoming an assistant coach from 2001-2003 at Marshall. He returned for his second tour at Hargrave and dreamed of living a similar life as famed Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy coach Fletcher Arritt.

“Fletcher Arritt was traditional and an unbelievable person,” said Keatts, 44, who grew up in Lynchburg, Va. “He had done a great job and developed a lot of men. A great Christian guy with a great family.

"I wanted to be Fletcher Arritt. I didn’t want to leave. Then opportunity knocked.”

Keatts' dreams and plans shifted fast when Louisville coach Rick Pitino called him in the spring of 2011 about joining his staff. There, Keatts helped the Cardinals reach two Final Fours, including winning the national title in 2013.

The return to the college ranks landed Keatts the head coaching job at North Carolina Wilmington in March of 2014. In his three seasons with the Seahawks, he finished first in the CAA three-straight years, winning the league tourney and reaching the NCAA Tournament the last two. He fell to Duke and Virginia in respective years in the first round of the “Big Dance,” giving him some foreshadowing to his next big change in life.

Keatts was named the new NC State coach Friday and held his introductory press conference Sunday afternoon. As he boldly stated, he is a winner, and everything about his coaching career backs that up.

“I’m going to work every day like it is my last day of work,” Keatts said. “If I don’t do well, I get fired.”

Keatts’ energy and work ethic led NCSU athletic director Debbie Yow to declare he had “the stuff.” The pursuit of Keatts as head coach was nearly identical to locating and closing in on football coach Dave Doeren on Dec. 1, 2012.

Yow said she could easily have talked with Keatts for hours Friday.

“We could still be there talking,” Yow said. “We were into basketball, and we loved that part of the conversation, talking about the game. He was completely prepared.”

Yow said Keatts will have a pool of around $950,000 to hire assistant coaches , and he hopes to finalize his staff by the end of March. Who UNCW hires as head coach could impact Keatts’ staff.

The chance to learn from Pitino has obviously changed Keatts’ life. Getting to incorporate Pitino’s schemes to what he learned through trial and error at Hargrave helped prepare Keatts for what lay ahead at UNC Wilmington. He had experience at forming a practice schedule, calling timeouts and making mistakes.

“For a lot of people who don’t understand what Hargrave is, it’s an unbelievable elite prep school,” Keatts said. “You look at what we did at UNCW, and it is 10 years of being a coach at Hargrave Military Academy mixed in with what Louisville has done. You’ll see the same thing here.”

Keatts went 29-6 this season and 15-3 in the CAA with the Seahawks. UNCW played with a 6-foot-7 post player, three wings and a point guard. Keatts will continue playing some small-ball, but will feature two post players at NC State.

“I would love to have a traditional four man for rebounding purposes,” Keatts said. “I will not abandon the fact that we can play with four guards. If you look at the game against Virginia, which was so crazy, we made those guys adjust to us.”

Keatts will need time to mold his roster, but his extensive recruiting contacts from his days at Hargrave and Louisville, should ease the transition. That background makes him different from other coaches who have succeeded at the mid-major level. Keatts had to find 15 players nearly every year at Hargrave, compared to just a few while in college.

“Hargrave mattered,” Yow said. “Twelve years with that type of discipline and accountability. That has to be part of who you become as a coach. I liked that. I think you get the best out of people if they are held accountable in the right kind of way.”

NC State’s roster could be in flux this spring, but Keatts said he wouldn’t take a player just to take one. He wants guys who will fit his system. Having a team identity will be a key part of the Keatts era, same with the motto of playing for the school's name on the front of the jersey and not the player's last name on the back.

“I want guys that can play in our system, which is up-tempo and a lot of ball screens, and playing hard on the defensive end,” Keatts said. “This is a great place to get a degree. Raleigh is an unbelievable city.”

Keatts has already reached out to Wolfeboro (N.H.) Brewster Academy senior point guard Thomas Allen, who signed with the previous coaching staff last November.

“I had a great conversation with him,” Keatts said.

NCSU could have at least two or three scholarships available to be used this spring and summer.

“If I don’t think those guys fit into what we are going to do, then we’ll play with our existing team and start all our younger guys,” said Keatts on whether NC State will add guys this offseason. “I love the guys we have in the program, but we obviously have some challenges and have to feel some holes.

“The first thing we’ll do with them is try and get them in the best shape of their lives.”