Earlier this week, NC State men’s basketball coach Kevin Keatts joined “Packer and Durham,” the ACC Network’s morning show. Keatts and the two hosts discussed a variety of topics, including the impact of a lost offseason, the prospect of the 2020-21 basketball season, talking about the death of George Floyd with his family and team, and the latest of DJ Funderburk.
As Keatts has stated before, Funderburk — arguably the most underrated player in the ACC — continues to test the 2020 NBA Draft waters, while also enrolled in summer classes at NC State.
A couple of quotes from Keatts are transcribed below. However, to listen to the interview, here’s a link to the AllWolfpack/NC State Maven site, which has the entire video file. (I appreciate access to this audio/video file. Weirdly, I struggled to find the video at the usual sources: YouTube and Twitter.)
DJ Funderburk
“I want him to be updated. I’m excited for any of my guys to go through any type of process. A lot of guys, including DJ, are holding out the hope that they can get some type of workout. But it’s been important — we communicate every other day about it. I’m talking to his dad about it. There are no workouts; it’s gonna be a tough situation. Devon [Daniels], we’re excited to have back, and we know that. We could be a really good basketball team if we add a guy like DJ Funderburk back with some experience to play alongside Manny Bates.”
Offseason missed
“I’ve got five freshman coming in. I would usually have eight weeks to bring those guys along — have them become better players, teach them our system a little bit, teach them our terminology. And that’s been tough. We’re trying to recruit the ’21 class and also ’22, and because of the pandemic we certainly can not get out and see guys play. That’s the toughest thing. We’ve had to be very creative, as every coach in the county has been. It’s been a lot of text messages. It’s been a lot of FaceTime, and a lot of Zoom.”
On the prospect of having a season
“I’m very nervous about it. I do think we’re going to have a season. I don’t know what it will look like. But I’m afraid, and I’m one of those coaches that’s praying everything goes well with football.”
HBCU Games
“I do think it’s a possibility in the future. I don’t know that it will happen this year. Most college, including the ACC, most of us have finished with our schedule. Nobody knows how the pandemic will effect; if it gets in to January, we may have to play all conference games. But what it did, by opening that discussion about playing on Martin Luther King Day, it opened the discussion to be able to talk about exactly other things we can do as a conference to bring awareness.”