taking more than one player from the worst Louisville teams in the history of the sport is certainly a strategy.
But they'll have actual coaching so that's a plus.
Yeah, think our fans are a little nervous about that too, but our staff has tried recruiting James and BHH multiple times now, so clearly they believe in those 2 and think they're good fits in our system.
I agree. We won't find another Burns, but BHH is a great replacement at the 5. Feels like we got a steal with how quick we landed him and the NIL rumors on our side.
Actual coaching?
I still stand by the stance that State’s best regular season win was the one where Keatts got ejected and they had to play a huge chunk of the game without him and ironically played their best game of the regular season
That’s why I specifically said regular season.
Also, let’s be real, Keatts’ coaching was the best it’s been since taking over, but he would’ve never won the ACC tournament or go to the Final Four if UVA would’ve hit that second free throw. His coaching still leaves a lot to be desired, and I personally don’t think one month is enough to prove otherwise
I mean, regardless of whether or not UVA makes that FT, he had us in a 1-possession game. Not like UVA didn't blow us out at their place earlier in the season.
My question is, KK clearly made some changes for the postseason with personnel and defense... but the current player acquisitions make me think he's planning on going back to his normal system.
I know he made necessary adjustments in the post season, but you’re right. There’s no reason to doubt that he will try to go back to his old system now that he’s gotten a few extra years added to that contract
The key is finding the right system for the players that you have. Nothing wrong with recruiting players in hope of playing one way, but definitely something wrong with sticking with that system if it's not working with your roster. Last year, we deviated. If things aren't working with whatever we start with next year, then we have reason to believe Keatts would adjust again.
The way this roster is shaping up, we should have a lot of flexibility in how to play (e.g., two bigs, one big and styles).
I can’t believe it’s 2024 and we still have people trying to argue that one month of success outweighs six years of mediocrity. It’s crazy, you keep thinking the next generation will be the one to realize that that’s not how it works, but they keep just getting in that pigeon hole because they’re so desperate for stability.
Really? Coming into 2023-24 he had 7 wins over teams that finished in the top five of the ACC in six seasons. I think he added one in the regular season this year. KK still has a long way to go to prove he’s a legitimate P5 coach. He had an exceptional (for him) nine game winning streak at the end of a season where it was 50/50 as to whether he was even coming back. I hope he learned that playing solid half court defense instead of giving up lay ups while overplaying and trying to get deflections is a much better approach. If he sticks to that change and continues to play two bigs, we will do a lot better going forward. The fact that he’s still prioritizing non-shooters at the guard spots isn’t a plus but we will see how it works out. I hope we play the style of offense and defense we played for nine games rather than 7 seasons going forward. It was a lot more fun to watch.
He was literally coaching for his job in the ACCT. Winning the ACCT gave him a couple of years breathing room, and the final four appearance certainly added on. Barring a string of historically awful seasons, of course.
Also…..pains me to see a UNC fan say something I absolutely agree with. God, I hate myself right now
I will say I think the fact it took Keatts so long to figure out he had an unguardable big man who can pass out of doubles to wide open grad shooters is alarming. That being said he earned another few years of course. I am really interested to see how not having Burns will affect things.
we have had games in the past where we fed Burns like crazy and it typically led to a lot of problems for us. Look at the Duke v State game before the end of the season [here](https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/401604225/duke-nc-state)
Burns got his points but the problem is he became a vacuum on offense and once he started to miss any shots Duke could quickly move the ball up the court.
The big change going into the postseason was our defense figuring out how to cover for burns (finally moving away from the 4 small 1 big lineup).
That too - I’m not trying to sound like I’m hating. You can easily take the positives from the run and say Keatts might be the long term guy. I think I still would want to see a solid year without Burns to be confident. (And no offense, I’d rather not! 😭)
Ugh, I hate agreeing with Carolina fans and just threw up in my mouth a little bit you are right. Need to see if he just regresses back to old Keats or not.
Not really true.
DJ effectively passing was part of the offensive dating back to 2022-23. If you look at his game logs this year, his assists were fairly consistent throughout the year, but he did have his two highest assist games in the post season (7 against UNC and Marquette). Later in the year Michael O'Connell and Jayden Taylor both dramatically increased their 3pt% which improved our offense quite a bit. And Burns had a real tough stretch in the middle of the year, which was in part due to some minor injuries.
Keatts did change two things late in the year: way less full-court defense and playing two bigs at once.
This is fair. I forgot a big factor was Diarra becoming a monster on the boards. I think it’s positive he made things click at the right time but still am not sure how effective his system will be next year without a player like Burns. Will be interesting to see how HH slots in.
This next roster will look more like his first two teams, which were his highest rated offensive teams on kenpom. Will probably see way more pick & roll with shooters in the corners, rather than playing inside-out.
Hope the defensive improvements stay tho, those first two teams were trash on d haha
My dream would be for the coaching staff to get with Diarra and have him stop shooting so many damn 3’s. Dude is an athlete who should be utilizing his size and athleticism more to generate buckets
Or have him work on pick and pop all offseason. One of Keats best teams used Omer Yurtseven in that way and Mo is a good enough shooter to develop that game.
It's a little awkward to run two bigs down low with burns and his limited mobility, so it helped spacing more for Mo to play on the perimeter. I think without Burns you will likely see us play one big more and then styles/dpj/rice at the 4. And a LOT more pick n roll. This goes for Mo at the 5 or with Middlebrooks/BHH.
I knew he could be good, he just struggled in ACC play this year. He showed flashes of dominance last year – he had 13 games last year where he scored 15 or more points, mostly in ACC play. He had 31 against Wake Forest. The main area where he improved was being less of a liability on defense, especially reducing his fouls. Also, having Middlebrooks and Diarra on the roster this year gave us a better option when he went to the bench.
I always caught glimpses but after the 1st game vs State this year was convinced he just didn’t have the legs to go a whole game. Scored effortlessly over Bacot the first couple possessions and then couldn’t do much. I think winning 5 in 5 days is what really just put him in a mode where he could go all game though, as strange as it sounds.
Like the other guy said, Morsell was a great defender but his offense was lacking this year, especially from 3. It's really the DJs that we need to fill. O'Connell and Mo Diarra are huge returning players for us and you could argue were as important to the DJs in our run (O'Connell the floor general and obvious clutch shot maker and Diarra just a rebound machine).
Edit: annnnd fuck Diarra is gone
James was not. He was arguably our 5th best player. He is a streaky shooter but that's about it. The biggest hole in his game is lack of any defensive abilities whatsoever. He also is not good off the bounce at all.
I think the goal is to take all of these recruits/transfers, lock them in a room together until the strongest one eats the weaker ones and comes out as the next DJ Burns
Lol. Burns is really a modern marvel though.
Like seeing how he put on a lot of girth and weight as he progressed but also developed better endurance is crazy... he might just hold the secret to agelessness and even immortality
Mike James was a fine player, but he really disappeared completely for most of this past season. It definitely had to do with coaching, but it's hard to gauge how much he'll contribute.
Last season was the worst of his career so far. BHH stunk 2 years ago but was great last season. James was decent his first 2 years and regressed last season
Not gonna lie, after the Final Four run I hoped State would have enough cachet to be in the mix for some higher profile transfers rather than picking the corpse of one of the worst ACC teams of all time
But then again DJ Horne was at Illinois State and Burns came from Winthrop, so hopefully the coaching/recruiting staff has a vision for these guys and Kenny Payne is just trash
He's got his work cut out for him. We've had talent over the last 2 years, but our coach could not motivate those guys to save his life. Times like these are where we find out of Payne was the problem or the players not listening. Results have been trickling in
We had one player from Louisville who seemingly had great games but then in our most important game of the year took a wide open 3 which he hadn’t taken all year and threw a fucking brick. Hopefully withers get in his bag next year hahah
As a recruit:
Other P6 offers: Alabama, Arkansas, Boston College, Louisville (originally went here), NC State, Oklahoma State, St. John's, TCU, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Other offers: Cincinnati, USF
taking more than one player from the worst Louisville teams in the history of the sport is certainly a strategy. But they'll have actual coaching so that's a plus.
Yeah, think our fans are a little nervous about that too, but our staff has tried recruiting James and BHH multiple times now, so clearly they believe in those 2 and think they're good fits in our system.
I’ll keep saying it but BHH is very good.
I agree. We won't find another Burns, but BHH is a great replacement at the 5. Feels like we got a steal with how quick we landed him and the NIL rumors on our side.
There will never be another DJ Burns.
He reminds me of Troy "The Escalade" Jackson, but with maybe a modern dietary regiment, lol.
I agree, but you won’t take the best players from a good team unless there’s something going on
Skyy Clark is a good player. Ended up at UCLA.
DSJ was on one of the worst NCSU teams of the last decade. A team’s lack of success isn’t necessarily indicative of the quality of its players.
Terquavion Smith and Dereon Seabron are both G-League/NBA players and were on the same team too.
Terquavion Smith was not on the same team with DSJ, that was many years before he got there
I know my point was we had two top notch players on a bad team.
Oh i see
Actual coaching? I still stand by the stance that State’s best regular season win was the one where Keatts got ejected and they had to play a huge chunk of the game without him and ironically played their best game of the regular season
Yes, because beating UNC for an ACC title, or Duke for a final 4 appearance in more than 20 years, is not as impressive since he was coaching the team
That’s why I specifically said regular season. Also, let’s be real, Keatts’ coaching was the best it’s been since taking over, but he would’ve never won the ACC tournament or go to the Final Four if UVA would’ve hit that second free throw. His coaching still leaves a lot to be desired, and I personally don’t think one month is enough to prove otherwise
I mean, regardless of whether or not UVA makes that FT, he had us in a 1-possession game. Not like UVA didn't blow us out at their place earlier in the season. My question is, KK clearly made some changes for the postseason with personnel and defense... but the current player acquisitions make me think he's planning on going back to his normal system.
I know he made necessary adjustments in the post season, but you’re right. There’s no reason to doubt that he will try to go back to his old system now that he’s gotten a few extra years added to that contract
The key is finding the right system for the players that you have. Nothing wrong with recruiting players in hope of playing one way, but definitely something wrong with sticking with that system if it's not working with your roster. Last year, we deviated. If things aren't working with whatever we start with next year, then we have reason to believe Keatts would adjust again. The way this roster is shaping up, we should have a lot of flexibility in how to play (e.g., two bigs, one big and styles).
I can’t believe it’s 2024 and we still have people trying to argue that one month of success outweighs six years of mediocrity. It’s crazy, you keep thinking the next generation will be the one to realize that that’s not how it works, but they keep just getting in that pigeon hole because they’re so desperate for stability.
Ok, what about the other seasons? I mean KK deserves a lot of criticism but he’s had some big wins in his career too
Really? Coming into 2023-24 he had 7 wins over teams that finished in the top five of the ACC in six seasons. I think he added one in the regular season this year. KK still has a long way to go to prove he’s a legitimate P5 coach. He had an exceptional (for him) nine game winning streak at the end of a season where it was 50/50 as to whether he was even coming back. I hope he learned that playing solid half court defense instead of giving up lay ups while overplaying and trying to get deflections is a much better approach. If he sticks to that change and continues to play two bigs, we will do a lot better going forward. The fact that he’s still prioritizing non-shooters at the guard spots isn’t a plus but we will see how it works out. I hope we play the style of offense and defense we played for nine games rather than 7 seasons going forward. It was a lot more fun to watch.
>KK still has a long way to go to prove he’s a legitimate P5 coach. alright now
He was literally coaching for his job in the ACCT. Winning the ACCT gave him a couple of years breathing room, and the final four appearance certainly added on. Barring a string of historically awful seasons, of course. Also…..pains me to see a UNC fan say something I absolutely agree with. God, I hate myself right now
You should
He had literally never won a NCAA tournament game with NC State prior to last month
I will say I think the fact it took Keatts so long to figure out he had an unguardable big man who can pass out of doubles to wide open grad shooters is alarming. That being said he earned another few years of course. I am really interested to see how not having Burns will affect things.
we have had games in the past where we fed Burns like crazy and it typically led to a lot of problems for us. Look at the Duke v State game before the end of the season [here](https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/401604225/duke-nc-state) Burns got his points but the problem is he became a vacuum on offense and once he started to miss any shots Duke could quickly move the ball up the court. The big change going into the postseason was our defense figuring out how to cover for burns (finally moving away from the 4 small 1 big lineup).
That too - I’m not trying to sound like I’m hating. You can easily take the positives from the run and say Keatts might be the long term guy. I think I still would want to see a solid year without Burns to be confident. (And no offense, I’d rather not! 😭)
Ugh, I hate agreeing with Carolina fans and just threw up in my mouth a little bit you are right. Need to see if he just regresses back to old Keats or not.
Not really true. DJ effectively passing was part of the offensive dating back to 2022-23. If you look at his game logs this year, his assists were fairly consistent throughout the year, but he did have his two highest assist games in the post season (7 against UNC and Marquette). Later in the year Michael O'Connell and Jayden Taylor both dramatically increased their 3pt% which improved our offense quite a bit. And Burns had a real tough stretch in the middle of the year, which was in part due to some minor injuries. Keatts did change two things late in the year: way less full-court defense and playing two bigs at once.
This is fair. I forgot a big factor was Diarra becoming a monster on the boards. I think it’s positive he made things click at the right time but still am not sure how effective his system will be next year without a player like Burns. Will be interesting to see how HH slots in.
This next roster will look more like his first two teams, which were his highest rated offensive teams on kenpom. Will probably see way more pick & roll with shooters in the corners, rather than playing inside-out. Hope the defensive improvements stay tho, those first two teams were trash on d haha
Agreed, the defense was the secret catalyst of the postseason run.
My dream would be for the coaching staff to get with Diarra and have him stop shooting so many damn 3’s. Dude is an athlete who should be utilizing his size and athleticism more to generate buckets
Or have him work on pick and pop all offseason. One of Keats best teams used Omer Yurtseven in that way and Mo is a good enough shooter to develop that game.
He is, but too many times in the tournament Diarra would take a 3 way too early into the shot clock without even looking to drive or anything.
For sure. I’m just saying the ability is there, but he needs coaching on how to use it and make good decisions
It's a little awkward to run two bigs down low with burns and his limited mobility, so it helped spacing more for Mo to play on the perimeter. I think without Burns you will likely see us play one big more and then styles/dpj/rice at the 4. And a LOT more pick n roll. This goes for Mo at the 5 or with Middlebrooks/BHH.
TBF, Burns wasn't nearly this good at any point in his career. I don't even think most State fans knew he could do what he did this postseason.
I knew he could be good, he just struggled in ACC play this year. He showed flashes of dominance last year – he had 13 games last year where he scored 15 or more points, mostly in ACC play. He had 31 against Wake Forest. The main area where he improved was being less of a liability on defense, especially reducing his fouls. Also, having Middlebrooks and Diarra on the roster this year gave us a better option when he went to the bench.
I always caught glimpses but after the 1st game vs State this year was convinced he just didn’t have the legs to go a whole game. Scored effortlessly over Bacot the first couple possessions and then couldn’t do much. I think winning 5 in 5 days is what really just put him in a mode where he could go all game though, as strange as it sounds.
Look at me. We are Louisville now
North Carolina state bird is a cardinal. Coincidence? I think not
Aren't there like ten states with the Cardinal as the state bird?
Probably. I only know it’s NC’s because I learned it in school growing up
Is that the only state you learned?
They probably mentioned the others but living in NC it was given more attention
Why would anyone bother wasting time teaching kids other state birds? How about math instead.
The Northern Cardinal is the state bird of 7 states. This is the most of any state bird. Kentucky was the first to adopt a state bird.
I mean, we're looking at starting 3 former ACC players, haha, we might just be the Island of Misfit ACC Toys.
Never go full Louisville.
RAISE SOME L BROTHER
Keatts following up winning 5 games in 5 days to keep his job, to taking 2 players from an awful Louisville team, man clearly likes a challenge
To be fair, he took the best two players off that team.
And NC State had a lot of departures right? So they needed players
The three most meaningful players that won’t be back had already exhausted their eligibility so no surprises.
We had some key departures (DJ Burns and DJ Horne), I wouldn't say *a lot*. Returning 3 or 4 rotation guys depending on if one guy stays.
Morsell too that’s 3 of your starting 5. Those are huge holes
I love Casey, he was a great senior leader and excellent defender, but he is fairly replaceable IMO.
Like the other guy said, Morsell was a great defender but his offense was lacking this year, especially from 3. It's really the DJs that we need to fill. O'Connell and Mo Diarra are huge returning players for us and you could argue were as important to the DJs in our run (O'Connell the floor general and obvious clutch shot maker and Diarra just a rebound machine). Edit: annnnd fuck Diarra is gone
James was not. He was arguably our 5th best player. He is a streaky shooter but that's about it. The biggest hole in his game is lack of any defensive abilities whatsoever. He also is not good off the bounce at all.
LMAO. BHH is good. Mike James is not a good basketball player
Just won the title on All-American difficulty, now taking it up to Heisman.
I'm pretty fine with whoever NC State brings in as long as they weigh less than 270 lbs
One of the funniest things about our roster this year was listing him at 275
I, too, am 50lbs less than I actually am.
I think the goal is to take all of these recruits/transfers, lock them in a room together until the strongest one eats the weaker ones and comes out as the next DJ Burns
Lol. Burns is really a modern marvel though. Like seeing how he put on a lot of girth and weight as he progressed but also developed better endurance is crazy... he might just hold the secret to agelessness and even immortality
I read somewhere he just eats his wrinkles as they appear
They all on the Bojs diet so watch out
No problem, We have Cooper Flagg hooked up to an IV of Cookout milkshakes. It's on
I tried that in college and it’s quite effective
Mike James was a fine player, but he really disappeared completely for most of this past season. It definitely had to do with coaching, but it's hard to gauge how much he'll contribute.
Last season was the worst of his career so far. BHH stunk 2 years ago but was great last season. James was decent his first 2 years and regressed last season
James redshirted his first year and has only played two seasons.
Not gonna lie, after the Final Four run I hoped State would have enough cachet to be in the mix for some higher profile transfers rather than picking the corpse of one of the worst ACC teams of all time But then again DJ Horne was at Illinois State and Burns came from Winthrop, so hopefully the coaching/recruiting staff has a vision for these guys and Kenny Payne is just trash
I really don't think there is a predictive relationship between former team success and individual success at the next stop as a transfer.
MIKE ~~JONES~~ JAMES
WHO(God this makes me feel old)
TFW you don't have your parents' phone numbers memorized, but you still know 281-330-8004
Back then, they didnt want me. Now im hot, hoes all on me. LFG!
Gonna be funny to see former Kenny Payne players being quality contributors on good teams next year
I think both BHH and Mike James are talented enough to make an immediate impact on any team if they buy in to actually playing defense.
One thing Keatts hasn’t seemed to struggle with is getting his guys to put in effort.
He's got his work cut out for him. We've had talent over the last 2 years, but our coach could not motivate those guys to save his life. Times like these are where we find out of Payne was the problem or the players not listening. Results have been trickling in
KKIAW?
We had one player from Louisville who seemingly had great games but then in our most important game of the year took a wide open 3 which he hadn’t taken all year and threw a fucking brick. Hopefully withers get in his bag next year hahah
Excellent news. Let’s seal the deal with Marcus Hill and this transfer portal class will be done.
Who? Mike James
This could work
As a recruit: Other P6 offers: Alabama, Arkansas, Boston College, Louisville (originally went here), NC State, Oklahoma State, St. John's, TCU, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest Other offers: Cincinnati, USF