The Wolfpacker's No. 10 story of the decade: Kevin Keatts is hired
Throughout the week, The Wolfpacker will be enumerating its choices for the top 10 stories of the past decade that was in NC State athletics.
The countdown begins with No. 10:
No. 10 - Kevin Keatts Is Hired
In the era of social media, hashtag has become a word. In a nutshell, it’s a way to express a trend. For NC State basketball in the spring of 2018, that hashtag was #KevinKeattsIsAWinner.
The expression came first from Keatts’ introductory press conference the year before. Keatts said, almost subtly, that if NC State fans were wondering what they were getting, “Kevin Keatts is a winner.”
It was not long before Keatts’ phrase, perhaps overlooked at the moment, was appearing on t-shirts, signs and social media. That’s partly because Keatts’ first team surprised many by going 11-7 in the ACC and earning an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
Keatts is now in his third season for the Wolfpack. He enters Wednesday’s game against Miami with a 56-29 overall mark in Raleigh (a .659 percent winning percentage) and a 22-19 record (.537) in ACC play. Those are currently the highest percentages for a Pack men’s basketball coach since Norm Sloan patrolled the sideline from 1967-80 and went 266-127 (.677) overall and 103-77 in the ACC (.572).
Keatts arrived at NC State after a three-year stint as the head coach at UNC Wilmington, where he led the Seahawks to back-to-back Colonial championships and automatic bids into the NCAA Tournament. Prior to that he had been an assistant for Rick Pitino at Louisville and a highly successful prep coach at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va.
The opening for NC State came after the dismissal of head coach Mark Gottfried in the latter half of the 2016-17 campaign. Unlike the previous two coaching searches for the Wolfpack in men’s basketball— the first to replace Herb Sendek in 2006 and the second to find Sidney Lowe’s successor in 2011 — this one went much smoother for NC State. Keatts was quickly identified as one of the top contenders, along with then-VCU head coach Will Wade. Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey also received a strong look, among others.
Keatts hit the ground running in Raleigh with a NCAA Tournament bid right off the bat, but it has not been all smooth sailing. Year two saw a disappointing snub from the NCAA Tournament, although a side affect of that was the Pack got to have a memorable and fun-filled three-game stretch at Reynolds Coliseum in the NIT.
Year three also looks like another potential extended stay on the bubble after a 2-3 start in conference play, but Keatts has also assembled a promising, five-player recruiting class for next fall headlined by in-state natives five-star forward Josh Hall, a Durham product playing at Moravian Prep in Hickory, and four-star guard Cam Hayes from Greensboro Day.
The hope for Wolfpack nation is that Keatts the hashtag will continue to stick for years to come.
Links from when Keatts was hired:
• Social media reacts to Keatts' hiring
• Column: NC State basketball gets a high grade on Kevin Keatts' hiring
• News and views: Kevin Keatts press conference
• Photo gallery: Kevin Keatts' introductory press conference
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