It’s easy to forget sometimes what could have been with NC State basketball under head coach Kevin Keatts.

He’s done very well, mind you: a surprising first season in which the Pack won 11 ACC games and made the NCAA Tournament followed up by a 24-win season that included a fun run to the quarterfinals of the NIT. A 10-win ACC season in year three and a third straight 20-win campaign very well could have had NC State back into the NCAA Tournament last year.

That’s a pretty good three-year run for a program that was coming off its first back-to-back losing seasons since the end of the Les Robinson era prior to Keatts' arrival.

Yet, Keatts also signed three NBA talent recruits never make it to Raleigh to help build his program.

Saddiq Bey was part of Keatts’ first full signing class that also included a trio of key starters/players on the current team in forwards DJ Funderburk and Jericole Hellems and center Manny Bates.

However, perhaps either the NCAA investigation or the departure former assistant coach A.W. Hamilton, led to Bey asking out of his letter of intent, and the fringe top-100 recruit ended up at Villanova.