NC State’s Kevin Keatts earns DI Gaines College Basketball Coach of the Year award
NC State coach Kevin Keatts was named the Division I Clarence “Big House” Gaines College Basketball Coach of the Year, the National Sports Media Association announced Friday morning.
The award honors Division I and Division II coaches that may not earn recognition from the larger outlets after the season, according to the announcement. An NSMA committee votes on the awards after the NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments are concluded.
Keatts led the Wolfpack to nine straight wins in the postseason, which included five in as many days to claim the program’s first ACC Tournament title since 1987. He helped the red and white continue its winning ways with four consecutive victories in the NCAA Tournament, which ended in NC State’s first Final Four appearance since 1983.
The Wolfpack’s season came to an end in a 63-50 loss to the eventual national runner-up Purdue at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
NC State finished the season 26-15, the most wins in a single season in Keatts’ first seven years in Raleigh. He has a 139-94 mark in those campaigns and Keatts has led the Wolfpack to 20-win seasons in five of his seven campaigns in the City of Oaks.
The award is named after Gaines, who was the head coach at Winston-Salem State University for 47 years. He won 828 games in his time there, including the 1967 Division II National Championship.
Gaines coached eventual NBA Hall of Famer Earl Monroe during his time as a head coach, as well as Cleo Hill (the first NBA first-round draft selection from an HBCU) and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. The coach was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.
NC State boasts four All-ACC Academic Team selections
After the Wolfpack’s Final Four run, the team had four players named to the ACC’s All-Academic team, the league announced this week.
Graduate guards DJ Horne, Casey Morsell and Michael O’Connell, and junior guard Jayden Taylor all earned the honor.
To be eligible to make the league’s academic team, the student-athlete must have a 3.0 GPA for the previous semester and such mark for their cumulative GPA. The player must also have appeared in at least 50% of the team’s games.
On the court, Horne led the NC State with 16.9 points per game, while Taylor was third on the team at 11.2 points per contest. Morsell was right behind the former Butler transfer at 11.1 points, while O’Connell had 5.7 points and 3.1 assists per game.
All four played significant roles in the Wolfpack’s mad dash to the Final Four, appearing in at least 40 of the 41 games. Horne was the only one of the quartet to miss a game — he sat the ACC Tournament opener with a hip injury, but returned in the second round of the league tournament.
