NC State fired coach Kevin Keatts on Sunday, ending an eight-year tenure less than a year after their improbable run to the ACC title and Final Four.

NC State fired coach Kevin Keatts on Sunday, ending an eight-year tenure less than a year after their improbable run to the ACC title and Final Four.

NC State fired coach Kevin Keatts on Sunday, ending an eight-year tenure less than a year after their improbable run to the ACC title and Final Four.

After guiding McNeese to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in program history, Will Wade returned to the ACC this offseason, joining North Carolina State.

No one knows that better than N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts, whose team last year found a never-before-seen form just in time to improbably win the league tournament and reach the Final Four.

Kevin Keatts may be enjoying his first round of ACC annual meetings as the head men's basketball coach at North Carolina State University, but he's hardly a stranger to the others in the room.

N.C. State played better in the second half than in the first, but the Wolfpack still came up short against ACC newcomer SMU in Raleigh on Saturday.

A prime Wolfpack target in the last year of the Kevin Keatts era, Latrell Allmond is now on Will Wade & Co.'s NC State basketball wishlist.

But the NC State basketball recruiters' interest in the 6-foot-8, 225-pound four-star appeared to wane in the final months of Keatts' reign.