Kevin Keatts says NC State will host basketball multi-team event this season
One piece of the puzzle is confirmed, but there is still a long way to go before N.C. State can set its 2020-21 basketball schedule.
On Friday morning the league confirmed the matchups for the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge. The Wolfpack will head to Ann Arbor to take on Michigan on Dec. 9.
After splitting games with Wisconsin in the last two ACC-Big Ten Challenges, N.C. State faces Michigan in the event for the first time since 2015. The Wolverines won 66-59 at PNC Arena that year.
But that was about all the light coach Kevin Keatts could shed on the schedule when he met with the media on Friday. What we do know is N.C. State will host a multi-team event. We also know that the Wolfpack will play the maximum 27 games. Outside of that, Keatts couldn’t give much more specifics on who and when his guys would be playing.
“The reason why I won’t go into all of our schedule, which some of the games I do know we are possibly playing,” Keatts said, “is because some of them are with contracts and we are waiting on contracts.”
Keatts didn’t want to announce teams that will play in the MTE, then have those teams not be able to play because of positive COVID tests or contact tracing. He referenced Orlando, which was supposed to be a bubble site for NCAA games, copying what the NBA just did over the summer, was canceled.
According to a story first reported by The Athletic, 10 teams were scheduled to play in multiple games, but ESPN and the participating schools couldn’t reach an agreement.
It was first reported by Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports that the Wolfpack would host North Florida, Eastern Kentucky and Charleston Southern later this month.
Keatts told the media that scheduling has been a “major challenge” but he’s past the frustration stage. All he can do for the next few weeks is focus on his team.
“Even when you think you have the games done,” Keatts said. “It’s not done. I can only control what I can control. I’m really concentrating on my team. I think the schedule will get figured out.”
The NCAA season is set to start on Nov. 25 all across the country. Keatts joked that the schedule might not be finalized until the day before the first game, and followed that up adding “I’m in a good place when it comes to scheduling.”
Keatts said he felt good about the 27-game schedule, even though he doesn’t know the lineup of ACC games yet. But the non-conference games seem almost set in stone, but not ready to be announced.
“I just don’t want to get out front and release them until I know we have all contracts back,” Keatts said. “I don’t want to have to back out of the situation.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 12:32 PM with the headline "Kevin Keatts says NC State will host basketball multi-team event this season."
