March Madness 2024: How NC State coach Kevin Keatts went from the hot seat to a Sweet 16 matchup vs. Marquette

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DALLAS — Only one double-digit seed reached the Sweet 16 in this year’s NCAA Tournament: NC State. Only one team still in the hunt for a national championship lost seven of its last nine regular season games: NC State. And only one team won five conference tournament games across five days to earn a March Madness berth. I don’t want to be repetitive so I’ll let you take a stab at which team that is.

This is not a normal resume for any team. Much less for a group battling for a title heading into Friday’s Sweet 16.

Now in his seventh season leading the Wolfpack, coach Kevin Keatts, was unquestionably on the hot seat just a few weeks ago. His team ended the regular season as losers in seven of its final nine games. What’s transpired since is nothing short of special: A rare ACC Tournament championship as a No. 10 seed, a coach lifting himself from a seat that was nearly up in flames and a program making the unlikely march in March to the Sweet 16 while riding the longest winning streak of Keatts’ tenure.

“We got smarter,” Keatts said Thursday. “We have the same players, they are just playing with a little bit more confidence. 

“When we went and looked at every team we lost to, it didn’t have a lot to do with them. It was more about what we weren’t doing. What we talked about going into the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament was, ‘Let’s limit our mistakes. Let’s stay locked in.’ A lot of it was transition defense, ball screen coverage. Things you could clean up. We had problems you could solve, and to their credit, we grew up in scouting reports and our film work became better, and we understood what we needed to do: Not beating ourselves.”

Winning seven in a row entering Friday’s Sweet 16 game against No. 2 seed Marquette would’ve seemed unlikely two months ago and almost impossible a few weeks back, when things went from bad to bleak in a blink in Raleigh during the final month of the regular…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/march-madness-2024-how-nc-state-coach-kevin-keatts-went-from-the-hot-seat-to-a-sweet-16-matchup-vs-marquette/

Author : Kyle Boone

Publish date : 2024-03-28 22:17:26

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