Former NC State coach Kevin Keatts joins ESPN as studio analyst

Former NC State men’s basketball coach Kevin Keatts won’t be on a bench this season for the first time in his collegiate career, but he will still be around the game on a regular basis as ESPN hired him as a studio analyst, the network announced Monday afternoon.

Keatts, who led the Wolfpack to the 2024 ACC Tournament championship and a trip to the Final Four, will team up with former Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, former Indiana and Georgia coach Tom Crean and former Boston College standout Malcolm Huckaby in studio.

He will make his television debut during No. 19 Kansas and No. 25 North Carolina on Friday night (7 p.m., ESPN). In addition to working games on the network’s main channel, Keatts will also be featured on ACC Network this season.

This past offseason, Keatts traveled to several programs around the country as he evaluated select teams that he had previous ties to, including Eastern Kentucky, Louisville and Xavier among others.

Keatts was fired after last season’s 12-19 showing, which featured a 5-15 record as the Wolfpack missed the ACC Tournament for the first time in program history. He left his mark on the university by winning the league crown the year prior before going to the program’s fourth Final Four appearance after winning nine straight elimination games with DJ Burns and DJ Horne serving as the engine for his squad.

Before he posted a 151-113 record with three trips to the NCAA Tournament in eight years at NC State, Keatts posted a 72-28 mark with a pair of trips to the Big Dance in three seasons at UNCW.

Although the rest of Keatts’ of schedule hasn’t been published, he could serve on the studio crew for four early-season games the Wolfpack is set to play: UAB on Friday (9 p.m.), UNCG on Nov. 12 (8 p.m.), and VCU on Nov. 17 (9 p.m.) will be on ACC Network, while its Maui Invitational opener against Seton Hall on Nov. 24 (2:30 p.m.) is scheduled to appear on ESPN2.