Going back to his time with UNC Wilmington, Keatts has produced seven Top 80 offenses in eight seasons as a head coach. In all five of his seasons with NC State, Keatts’ teams have ranked inside the Top 65 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom. That said, it’s tough to argue with some of the results. It's also part of a growing trend: This marked the third straight season that NC State assisted on less than 50 percent of its field goals. Given the offensive talent of that roster - two surefire future NBA players - it was disappointing to see things boil down to a Your-Turn-My-Turn type system. This doubled as the lowest percentage of any Keatts-led team. That's a recipe for a frustrating, inefficient half-court offense.įor instance, the Wolfpack assisted on only 43.8 percent of their field goals in the 2021-22 season, ranking 318th nationally in assist rate (and last among ACC teams). Without that north-south penetration, the ball moves laterally, doesn’t touch the paint and results in too many contested off-dribble jump shots, which occur late in the possession. When opponents are able to keep the ball in front, and stay out of rotations, NC State’s offense will stagnate. Due to a limited supply of random or designed off-ball motion, NC State can appear rote and entirely too predictable on offense. There are, of course, some downsides, too. Depending on the coverage, the primary ball handler can find the holes and make reads. It's the offense that dictates tempo and leads the proverbial dance. With the pick-and-roll, the ball handler dribbles off the screen, reads the coverage and makes a decision: shoot, pass (roll man going to the rim or a kick-out for a 3PA) or a re-screen. Passes are liable to be intercepted or deflected or dropped, resulting changes of possession. Primarily, this approach keeps the ball in the hands of the team’s top playmaker and puts the defense into rotation, while limiting turnovers.
This offensive philosophy - the reliance on spread pick-and-roll - has its strengths.
Top 5 efficiency: Few, Otzelberger, Scott, Bennett, McDermott /EUcAGPZBoj Top 5 usage: Keatts, D'Antoni, Byington, Christian, Duquette With that 4-around-1 approach, NC State has become one of the signature high-volume pick-and-roll offenses in the country.īall screen usage and efficiency by coach in this decade (min 100 games coached) It’s a straightforward design: three or four shooters, at least one ball handler and one screener who dives to the rim. When Kevin Keatts arrived in Raleigh, he brought with him an offense that centers itself around pick-and-roll action: space the floor and work to bend the defense with efficient screen-dive decision-making.
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