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I don’t recall ever seeing roster turnover like has happened under Keatts. In his second season, if there are no additional roster changes (so assuming Dorn returns, for example):
– There will be just 2 players remaining who were recruited/signed by Gottfried: Dorn and Johnson.
– There will be just 3 players remaining who played during the 2017-18 season: Dorn, Johnson, and Beverly.
– Of the 13 scholarship players, 9 transferred to State from another program. Given there are 3 incoming freshmen, Markell Johnson is the only non-freshman who is not a transfer.I realize that Keatts coached at Hargrave, where the entire roster turned over every season… but I wasn’t expecting this extreme when he took over at State.
That said, the roster looks nicely balanced across positions:
– 3 PGs (Johnson, Beverly, Harris)
– 3 SGs (Daniels, Bryce, Lockett)
– 2 SFs (Dorn, Hellems)
– 4 PFs (Killeya-Jones, Funderburk, Steere, Bates)
– 1 C (Walker)Remaining player eligibility is also balanced:
– 2 players with 1 year remaining
– 4 players with 2 years remaining
– 4 players with 3 years remaining
– 3 incoming freshmen with 4 years remainingAnd it certainly appears that the roster is constructed with players who better fit Keatts’ system than the roster in his first season.
I’m optimistic.
Seems like our on legendary big man Tommy B would been just as good mentor or better
LOL at this. Ewing played 17 seasons in the NBA and is one of the best big men in NBA history. Then he spent 14 years coaching in the NBA, much of that specifically coaching big men. There may not be a better coach in college basketball for a big mean like Y7 than Ewing.
I like rye’s take above. This is about maximizing his chance to make the NBA, and Ewing is better for him in that regard than Keatts. He already has the ability to shoot. He needs to get better at defense, rebounding, inside footwork, and finishing around the basket. All stuff that Ewing will be able to help with, especially given two years.
I appreciate Y7’s time at State and wish him well. I think Keatts has the type of big men he really wants in the incoming recruiting class.
I read on another site that Markell is going to enter the draft to get an evaluation. I don’t see any chance that he would be a first round pick, so I assume he will be back. Not sure if that is who rye was referencing with regard to rumors.
With the current roster, it seems likely that PG Johnson, SG Bryce, and G/F Dorn are locks to start. That leaves one more starter at G and one big. That last starting G spot seems likely to be Daniels or Beverly, with the one of them who does not start and Harris getting plenty of PT. It seems that leaves Batts without many minutes. I suppose that could result in him considering a transfer, whether this offseason or next year, should it play out that way.
It also seems like it will be a challenge for Bey and Hellems to get a lot of minutes barring injuries ahead of them. But that seems like a potential issue to deal with next offseason, not this year.
RPI appears to be way too heavily weighted against OOC SOS
RPI measures what it sets out to measure. It is a simple formula. If you play a lot of teams with lousy RPI, and those teams also play a lot of teams with lousy RPI, it will have a negative effect on your RPI.
What you seem to really be getting at is how important the RPI should be with respect to evaluating teams. Or possibly whether or not we could devise another metric that would improve upon the deficiencies of RPI.
I think those questions are one reason why the committee considers many different criteria and metrics, including RPI but also quadrants, BPI, KenPom, Sagarin, conference record, road/neutral record, etc.
The fact is that State seems to be safely in the tournament as a 9 or 10 seed as of today, despite having a RPI of 47. That tells you that RPI is not the be all, end all.
So, here’s my question. I believe I’ve heard it stated (usually in reference to Notre Dame this year), that the committee takes into account injuries and the record of the team before, during, and after the injury, and might “help out” a team that returns a star late in the season.
The same could (should imo) apply to MJs “7 game suspension” (How many times did they say that on Sunday?), we lost 3 of our games (UNC-G, Clemson, ND) during this time.
Is that likely to help us?
I very seriously doubt it. These are the 7 games he missed:
L UNC-G
W Robert Morris
W Jacksonville
L @Clemson (by 16 points)
L @Notre Dame (by 30 points)
W Duke
W ClemsonIMO it is reasonable to think we would have beaten UNC-G if he played, especially since that was the first game he missed. Two counterpoints, though:
1. This NC State team has no business losing to UNC-G with or without Johnson. Especially given they beat Duke and Clemson without Johnson, two of their biggest wins of the season.
2. This NC State team lost to Northern Iowa (a worse loss than UNC-G) with Johnson, so he may not have made a difference.The losses at Clemson and at Notre Dame were lopsided enough that I doubt anyone would reasonably expect that Johnson would have made a difference in either outcome.
I don’t see a real pattern here. Sure, we went 4-3 without him, but it was also an extremely difficult schedule during that stretch. I don’t see any reason to expect the committee to discount the losses. Especially since Johnson was missing for a reason that had something to do with his own behavior, not an injury he could not control.
Fortunately, we won’t need such consideration to make the tournament.
Thanks for all of the effort you put into this and all of your posts on this subject. I look forward to reading the new entry every week.
If State wins out, this will end up as State’s best regular season since 1988-89. What an enjoyable season. I could get used to this…
realtimerpi.com predicts us to sweep the last 4:
Current Record: 18-9 (8-6)
Current RPI Rank: 59
Current SOS Rank: 64Projected Regular Season Record: 22-9 (12-6)
Projected Regular Season RPI Rank: 44
Projected Regular Season SOS Rank: 65Also noteworthy, it predicts both UNC and Clemson to lose 2 more games, which would make State the #3 seed behind UVA and Duke entering the ACC tournament. Let’s hope their GAMER prediction system is spot on!
By the way, if these predictions come true, this would be the best State MBB regular season since 1988-89 under Valvano. Really impressive in Keatts’ first season on the job.
Archie who?
realtimerpi.com predicts us to sweep the last 4:
Current Record: 18-9 (8-6)
Current RPI Rank: 59
Current SOS Rank: 64Projected Regular Season Record: 22-9 (12-6)
Projected Regular Season RPI Rank: 44
Projected Regular Season SOS Rank: 65Also noteworthy, it predicts both UNC and Clemson to lose 2 more games, which would make State the #3 seed behind UVA and Duke entering the ACC tournament. Let’s hope their GAMER prediction system is spot on!
We have to take care of business against Wake, BC and GT. Do that and we make 10 ACC wins. That alone MIGHT get us in depending on the ACC tournament and the rest of the bubble teams.
realtimerpi.com shows us at #60 as of today. It projects our final 5 regular season games as follows:
02-17 at Wake Forest 10-16 (3-11) 124 79-80 L 02-20 Boston Coll. 16-10 (6-7) 79 83-75 W 02-25 Florida St. 18-8 (7-7) 37 83-77 W 03-01 at Georgia Tech 11-15 (4-9) 157 79-80 L 03-03 Louisville 18-8 (8-5) 40 78-71 WBased on that, it projects us at 20-11 (10-8) at the end of the regular season with #64 RPI. Not good. And, per these rankings, we do not have another chance at a quadrant 1 win over the remaining 5 regular season games.
I think we have a great chance to win all of these games, though I would be surprised to see a 5-0 sweep. But this seems to show that beating Wake, BC, and GT is definitely not enough to get State in.
I believe there are 20+ other coaches who can take a team with average talent and make the dance. They may not do so every year, but they have demonstrated the aptitude…for example, in the ACC we have four coaches who regularly demonstrate this ability: Larranaga, Brey, Bennett and Buzz. In addition, most would agree that Boeheim and Krzyzeksi have this ability
Your “20+ coaches” reference is irrelevant unless referring to those coaches who might have come to State last offseason. Larranaga, Brey, Bennett, Buzz, Boeheim, and Coach K are irrelevant.
Please give us a list of the 20+ coaches to whom you are referring.
there are 20+ other coaches who could have had this team in the bubble position
I don’t disagree with the overall message in the OP, but I disagree with this assertion. To frame what Keatts has accomplished so far, consider:
1. He had some role in convincing Y7 to return this season. Not sure how much of a role, so hard to judge how likely it is that 20 other coaches could have done that.
2. He signed rotation players Al Freeman, Hunt, Batts, and Beverly. There was no reason to think any of those players were coming to State prior to Keatts being hired. Different coaches presumably would have gotten some different players, but how likely is it that any other coach who would have considered State would have brought in a group as good as this one to play immediately? Seems very unlikely to me, and I feel certain there aren’t 20 others who could have done it.
3. He has achieved some things that haven’t been done at State since Jimmy V, such as back to back ACC road wins and beating Duke and UNC in the same season when both were top 10. No way there are 20 other coaches who would have considered State who could have done that.
Also, while it is not directly relevant to being a bubble team this year, he already signed a very strong class for next year, including 4 transfers and 4 incoming freshmen. Again, other coaches would certainly have signed some players, but a group as strong as this group seems doubtful. No way 20 others would have matched that.
By the way, when I posted in another thread yesterday, UNC-G RPI at realtimerpi was 85. Then they lost yesterday at #299 Chattanooga, and their RPI dropped to 109. I doubt they could drop all the way to a quad 4 loss, but it is within the realm of possibility if they drop a couple more like that.
I like realtimerpi better than ESPN. Here are the current ACC RPI rankings from that site, updated as of 9 pm PST tonight (so about 40 minutes ago):
1 UVA
4 Duke
6 Clemson
11 UNC
17 Miami
20 Louisville
32 Syracuse
33 FSU
65 State
72 BC
73 VT
76 ND
125 Wake
142 GT
180 PittBy those ratings, these are the remaining games for State by quadrant:
1 – UNC, Louisville, @Syracuse, @VT
2 – FSU, BC, @Wake
3 – ND, @GTState’s current record by quadrant:
1 – 4-4
2 – 0-1
3 – 4-2
4 – 7-0So let’s say State wins 5 more games. Worst case is they win all 5 quad 2-3 games and lose all quad 1 games, meaning they would finish the regular season like this:
1 – 4-8
2 – 3-1
3 – 6-2
4 – 7-0I doubt that is enough to get in without ACC tournament success, and their first ACCT game would be a quad 2 or 3 game, so not sure 1 win would be enough. If they won the first game, the second game would be a quad 1 game, so winning 2 ACCT games would be enough. But that is a tough path.
So I’m thinking 6 more regular season wins might actually be required, since that guarantees at least 1 more quad 1 win and also guarantees at least 1 more road win.
7 more wins in any combination should make it a lock.
I did not realize UNC-G has such a strong RPI, so that loss isn’t as bad as I thought when I first posted about it. Bottom line, we have one more loss and the worst loss.
I’ll have to disagree with you there about that point being the “bottom line”, especially seeing as your original post doesn’t even try to balance your point about losses with the fact that we have more wins against top #10/top #25 than the team in question. AND we BEAT them on their own court.
I don’t need to balance it. We have RPI and quadrants to do that for us. RPI math says UNC is #10 and State is #62 through Saturday’s games. The quadrant breakdowns show UNC has the same quadrant 1 record, and a better record in the rest.
We beat them, and that was a great accomplishment, as were our wins over Duke and Arizona. UNC can’t match those 3 wins, but their resume is better at everything else by a margin large enough to more than offset when it comes to judging NCAA tournament worthiness.
That said, I’ll take State’s resume over UNC’s any day, since it includes the win at UNC. And I expect State to make the NCAA tournament now, which is an unexpected surprise compared to expectations entering the season.
You’re sort of right, UNCG and Northern Iowa are both rated much higher than Wofford.
What source are you citing? Interesting to see significant differences between it and realtimerpi.com. Regardless, I assume the differences are not particularly significant in the big picture.
Carolina has lost to Wofford and VT.
No idea why you mentioned VT here as if that was a bad loss. That is a quadrant 1 game as of today, at least based on realtimerpi.com. Here are UNC’s losses:
#28 Michigan State at neutral site
#109 Wofford at home
#31 FSU on road
#1 UVA on road
#72 VT on road
#62 NC State at homeHere are State’s losses:
#135 Northern Iowa at neutral site
#13 Tennessee at neutral site
#85 UNC-G at home
#6 Clemson on road
#77 Notre Dame on road
#1 UVA on road
#16 Miami at homeI did not realize UNC-G has such a strong RPI, so that loss isn’t as bad as I thought when I first posted about it. Bottom line, we have one more loss and the worst loss.
And the quality of our quadrant 1 wins is weighed down by all of our quadrant 4 games. Consider:
Quad 1: State 4-4, UNC 4-4
Quad 2: State 0-1, UNC 5-1
Quad 3: State 4-2, UNC 5-1
Quad 4: State 7-0, UNC 2-0It is those quadrant 4 games that are killing us – 7 home games against teams ranked 255+. Meanwhile, UNC only played 2 quadrant 4 games, against #197 WCU at home and #217 Portland at neutral site.
All of my RPIs are from realtimerpi.com.
Rewatched some highlights and had not remembered that Freeman was literally uncontested on his three point shots. I’m not sure if that says more about UNC’s lack of defense or our team learning to move the ball better. Probably both.
And once Freeman made a few of those three pointers, it opened up the drives for him, and he was very good on those, whether shooting, passing, or drawing fouls.
I’d like to believe this is a blueprint for our offense going forward.
Here are a couple of accomplishments I have seen posted elsewhere.
1. Winning at Pitt and at UNC in back to back games is the first time state has won back to back ACC road games since 1987.
2. This season is the third in program history in which we have beaten UNC and Duke when both were ranked in the top 10. The other two times were 1988-89 and 1990-91.
So, not since Coach V had either of these things been accomplished. IMO those facts are impressive and provide reasons to believe that Keatts is the real deal.
unx is 16-6 and ranked 10th in nation. 5-4 in the ACC. 0-2 vs. Top ten, 2-3 vs. Top 25.
NCSU is 15-7 and not ranked in nation. 5-4 in he ACC. 3-1 vs. Top ten, 4-2 vs. Top 25.
This perfectly highlights why scheduling is so important. Our OOC schedule is killing us in every ranking. We also have two terrible losses vs. UNC-G and Northern Iowa, and, without looking, I assume UNC has no losses close to that.
We can only hope that Keatts felt he needed a weak schedule in his first season given the roster he inherited, but will upgrade it in future seasons. That is one thing Gott was very good at.
Channeling some CC Harrison today. Earned his scholarship, a year’s use of a rental Escolade, a .45 and some blow. Wait. Wrong team.
LMAO
Lost sneaker, no whistle?
Yes, whistle for foul on Dorn, naturally
