The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/916614
JANUARY 2018 ■ 73 WOLFPACK BASKETBALL "One of the things we want to concen‑ trate on and get better is our halfcourt defense." The ACC crushed the Big Ten 10‑4 in the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge, with NC State contributing an 85‑78 home win over Penn State Nov. 29. Keatts knows the league is strong again this season, with a pretty good amount of parity, but he hasn't been using his free time to watch his future opponents. "It's tough because the only time that I've locked in and watched another ACC opponent is during the Big Ten Challenge," Keatts said. "I thought our league did a tremendous job in that challenge. "I've seen scores, but I haven't had a chance to watch a bunch of games. I had the chance to watch UVA and Wake Forest because they played UNCG [whom the Pack played Dec. 16]." One score that did get attention was when Boston College upset top‑ranked and previously unbeaten Duke 89‑84 Dec. 9 in Chestnut Hill, Mass. That was the first ACC game of the 2017‑18 season. "I think on any given night, any team in the country, whether you are a top‑25 team or a team outside of that, you have the abil‑ ity to win the game and the ability to lose the game," Keatts said. NC State fifth‑year senior shooting guard Sam Hunt has dreamed of playing in the ACC after previous stops at Jackson‑ ville and North Carolina A&T. "One of my friends was hitting me up about it, and it still actually hasn't caught up to me that I'm playing for an ACC school," Hunt said. "I'm ready to get it started and ready to be playing." A nice byproduct of the start of the ACC schedule Dec. 30 is that the players will get extra time to work on their games during the winter break. "I think you can get a lot better because you don't have focus on school and all you focus is on basketball," NCSU redshirt ju‑ nior forward Torin Dorn said. "You can rest your body and get healthy. It's good for us. "There is a lot of extra time and extra hours you can put in the gym." NC State Assistant Coaches Take Active Role In Game Planning College coaching staffs use their assis‑ tant coaches in a variety of different ways to do pregame scouting. Former NC State head coach Sidney Lowe would often rotate the assistant coaches and have them take a particular op‑ ponent, matching up coaches with certain teams if they meshed well. The assistant coaches that didn't have the scouting as‑ signment were free to recruit on the road. When ex‑head coach Mark Gottfried re‑ placed Lowe, he had a different style, one he observed from current Kentucky head coach John Calipari. He originally had the scouting information funnel through to then assistant coach Bobby Lutz, who would deliver it to the team. The "one voice" method to the players was Gott‑ fried's preferred style. New NC State head coach Kevin Keatts uses a different model that involves all of his coaching staff. "Every assistant coach has a part of ev‑ ery scout," Keatts said. "We are a little bit different than some staffs, where it might be you scout for UNCG and then some‑ body else has a scout." When Keatts uses the term "part," that means a specific breakdown that could hap‑ pen in the game. "Somebody might have the man offense and somebody might have zone offense," Keatts said. "Somebody might have press offense and those type of things. "I like it because it gets everybody in‑ volved in the scouting, instead of one per‑ son knowing what is going on." ■ Head coach Kevin Keatts has each one of his three assistant coaches involved in the scout- ing of every opponent. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN Fifth-year senior guard Sam Hunt, a Greens- boro, N.C., native, is one of many NC State players set to make their ACC debuts when the Pack travels to Clemson Dec. 30. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN 2017-18 NC State Men's Basketball Schedule Date Opponent (TV) Result/Time (ET) Nov. 3 Mars Hill! W, 109-66 Nov. 10 VMI W, 102-67 Nov. 12 Charleston Southern W, 78-56 Nov. 14 Bryant W, 95-72 Nov. 16 Presbyterian W, 86-68 Nov. 22 vs. Arizona^ W, 90-84 Nov. 23 vs. Northern Iowa^ L, 64-60 Nov. 24 vs. Tennessee^ L, 67-58 Nov. 29 Penn State# W, 85-78 Dec. 2 South Carolina State W, 103-71 Dec. 9 UMKC W, 88-69 Dec. 16 UNC Greensboro (RSN) 12 p.m. Dec. 19 Robert Morris (ACCNE) 7 p.m. Dec. 22 Jacksonville (RSN) 7 p.m. Dec. 30 at Clemson (RSN) 4 p.m. Jan. 3 at Notre Dame (ACCN) 9 p.m. Jan. 6 Duke (ESPN) 5 or 8 p.m. Jan. 11 Clemson (ESPN/2) 9 p.m. Jan. 14 at Virginia (ESPNU) 6 p.m. Jan. 18 Wake Forest (ACCN) 8 p.m. Jan. 21 Miami (ACCN) 12 p.m. Jan. 24 at Pittsburgh (RSN) 9 p.m. Jan. 27 at North Carolina (CBS) 12 p.m. Feb. 3 Notre Dame (ESPN/2) 12 p.m. Feb. 7 at Virginia Tech (RSN) 9 p.m. Feb. 10 North Carolina (ACCN) 2 p.m. Feb. 14 at Syracuse (ACCN) 9 p.m. Feb. 17 at Wake Forest (ACCN) 4 p.m. Feb. 20 Boston College (RSN) 7 p.m. Feb. 25 Florida State (ESPNU) 6 p.m. March 1 at Georgia Tech (ACCN) 8 p.m. March 3 Louisville (ESPN/2) 6 p.m. March 6-10 ACC Tournament$ (ACCN/ESPN) TBD ! Exhibition; ^ Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis at Paradise Island, Bahamas; # Big Ten-ACC Chal- lenge; * ACC game; $ at Brooklyn, N.Y.; ACCNE — ACC Network Extra; RSN — Regional Sports Network; ACCN — ACC Network; ESPN/2 — ESPN or ESPN2