NC State head coach Kevin Keatts said there was a difference in how his former teams at UNC Wilmington reacted to the news of reaching the NCAA Tournament compared to his current squad, which he's OK with.
Perhaps the main difference in excitement level is that NC State has already played ranked foes such as Arizona, Duke, Miami, Tennessee and Virginia, plus Clemson and North Carolina twice.
Finding out Sunday that NC State would play against Seton Hall at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in Wichita, Kansas., was definitely big news, but something the Wolfpack players took in stride because they know the opportunity in front of them.
“We are going into this tournament and try to have the most fun that we can have this week,” Keatts said. “I want our guys to be excited about it.
“When you are at a place like Wilmington, and you have the opportunity, and for us it was Duke [in 2016] and UVa last year, our guys were so hungry. They wanted to play on the big stage and were excited about it.
“I have a different personality group. It's not that these guys don’t want to, but they don’t show a lot of emotion. They don’t give you a lot.”
NC State (21-11 overall, 11-7 ACC) has made a season out of defying expectations and a strong run in the NCAA Tournament isn’t out of its realm. Seniors Lennard Freeman and Abdul-Malik Abu have played in the Big Dance while at NC State, and senior Allerik Freeman did the same during his three years at Baylor. The rest of the squad is new to the experience, however.
“We have our work cut out with so many inexperienced guys,” Keatts said. “We have a very good opponent. They get out in transition. They shoot the ball well and have elite post players. They mix up their defenses and play with a swagger and certain toughness that we certainly have to overcome.”
Keatts said the key against Seton Hall is come out with good energy from the start. He was surprised his team was flat in the first half in bowing out early against Boston College in the ACC Tournament. The Wolfpack also suffered a surprising late-season loss at struggling Georgia Tech on March 3.
“We didn’t play a great first half against Boston College,” Keatts said. “We’ve won a lot of games. The second half [vs. BC] was more our identity. You go back to Senior Night, I thought we played incredible [against Louisville]. If you look at the Georgia Tech game, I thought it was a game of different styles.”
NC State’s success in knocking off programs such as Duke and Arizona quickly changed the preseason narrative, which had the Wolfpack predicted to finish 12th in the ACC. Getting to the NCAA Tournament became a realistic goal, after NC State proved its mettle by bouncing back from losses at Notre Dame and Clemson to open conference play.
“I told somebody the other day that you could have your best team here at NC State and may not win 11 conference games,” Keatts said. “This is the best conference in college basketball. I’m excited about what these guys have done in a short amount of time.”
A new standard for the program has been created after not reaching the tournament the last two years.
“It’s huge coming off last year. The last two years — we didn’t perform the way we wanted to,” said NCSU redshirt junior Torin Dorn, who watched a little bit but not a lot of the NCAA Tournament last year. “We were able to turn it around this year. I have the opportunity to go to the tournament and do some things.”
NC State sophomore center Omer Yurtseven remembers first watching the NCAA Tournament when he was 14 years old in Turkey. Now, he gets to play in it for the first time.
“It was the finals, and I don’t know who won. We were at a camp with the club team and were just watching it in the middle of the night,waking up at 2 a.m.,” Yurtseven said. “It was a big stage, that is all that I remember. I think there were 70,000 people, it was crazy.”
Fifth-year senior Sam Hunt played at Jacksonville and North Carolina A&T, winning just 25 games in three years. Perhaps nobody is more excited about the postseason than the former Greensboro (N.C.) Dudley standout.
“It was a little bit surreal, being there with my teammates, with my coaching staff and the supporters that we have,” said Hunt, about his first chance to hear his team’s name called on Selection Sunday. “It was amazing. When our name was actually called, I just stood up, smiled and screamed a little bit. I took a picture of it.”
Seton Hall has reached the NCAA Tournament the last two years, losing to Gonzaga in 2016 and Arkansas last year under coach Kevin Willard. Keatts and Willard are both disciples of former Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, and Keatts worked with Willard’s father, Ralph Willard, for a year with the Cardinals.
“When I was at Louisville, we called ’22 to two’ which is a 2-2-1 back to a matchup zone at times and then man-to-man,” Keatts said. “He’s not playing as much matchup zone.
“Kevin is a tremendous coach as Ralph was. He does a great job with his program. ”
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