This time last year, NC State was on the outside of the NCAA Tournament bubble, and head coach Kevin Keatts was firmly on the hot seat heading into the ACC Tournament. Then, Keatts helped lead DJ Burns, DJ Horne, and the rest of the Wolfpack to a conference title and automatic bid into March Madness as a No. 11 seed, and ultimately to the Final Four.
It was one of the most unlikely Final Four runs in the history of college basketball, but after the Wolfpack went 12-19 this season to miss the ACC Tournament altogether, Keatts is on his way out of Raleigh after eight seasons. The veteran head coach was fired Sunday morning after a 72-70 loss to Miami in the regular season finale.
— Kevin Keatts (@CoachKeattsNCSU) March 9, 2025
Kevin Keatts fired after eight seasons leading North Carolina State
Keatts appeared to take the firing in stride, announcing via a social media graphic that he would be entering the transfer portal. Across his eight seasons in Raliegh, Keatts took the Wolfpack to the NCAA Tournament three times, only advancing beyond the first round during last season’s miracle run. He closes out his tenure at 151-113 overall.
An assistant coach under Rick Pitino at Louisville from 2011-14, Keatts found his way to NC State after three successful seasons as the head coach at UNC Wilmington in the CAA. Keatts led the Seahawks to a regular season CAA title in Year 1, then back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in 2016 and 2017.
The firing may come as a bit of a surprise off last year’s success, but Keatts was unable to parlay any of the Final Four excitement into momentum for the program. He landed four incoming transfers last offseason, Dontrez Styles, Marcus Hill, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, and Mike James, after losing Horne and Burns to graduation.
James did not play this season for the Wolfpack, but Styles, Hill, and Huntley Hatfield all averaged at least 19 minutes a game for the 16th-place team in the ACC. Styles and Hill led the team in scoring but were not high-level players in the conference after arriving from Georgetown and Bowling Green respectively.
The irony of Keatts saying he’s “entering the transfer portal” after his firing, is that if he had done better in the transfer portal last offseason when his program had reached national prominence, then he wouldn’t need to leave Raleigh. They had to keep him for this season, but it was smart of the NC State athletic department not to allow the Final Four banner hanging the Lenovo Center to cloud their judgment. It was time to move on from a head coach who, aside from catching lightning in a bottle last March, had the program stuck in the mud for years.