NC State coach Kevin Keatts opens up about Wolfpack’s transfer portal additions

It’s been just over a month since NC State men’s basketball played at the Final Four in Phoenix. Though the Wolfpack had immense success to close the season, the page has been turned to the 2024-25 campaign with the new roster already working out on campus.

NC State signed four transfer portal additions after the season concluded and the entire quartet has been training inside the Dail Basketball Center along with the returning players over the last couple of weeks.

The Wolfpack brought in the No. 12 transfer portal haul, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, as it signed forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (Louisville), wings Dontrez Styles (Georgetown) and Mike James (Louisville) and guard Marcus Hill (Bowling Green).

For NC State coach Kevin Keatts , the portal process was a success in completing the Wolfpack’s roster for a new season in Raleigh. And having the portal players in the City of Oaks before the calendar flips into June was an added bonus for the Pack.

“It’s good because I think the earlier the better,” Keatts told TheWolfpacker.com in an exclusive interview. “We were able to fulfill some really, really pressing needs that we had. I think all of those guys will complement our team and our program in the right way. They’re really, really, really good folks and I think that will really go a long way.”

While NC State used a portal class that had a wide-range of success at their previous stops to get to the Final Four a year ago, it was different this time around. All four players did not get far in their conference tournaments this past year, including a trio of players from last-place Louisville and bottom of the Big East squad, Georgetown.

But Keatts did not think much of that since Huntley-Hatfield, James and Styles all had individual efforts that can translate well to NC State’s system.

“I tell folks all the time, though Mike, Brandon and even Dontrez didn’t have great years, you still can’t ignore what they were able to do in college,” Keatts said. “All double-figure scorers. Their team didn’t necessarily do as well, but that doesn’t mean it’s on them.”

Huntley-Hatfield and James, in particular, were two of the Cardinals better players, despite the fact Louisville struggled in the ACC over the last two seasons. Keatts and his staff were able to scout them as opponents twice this past season, while also being able to compare what they did against other league foes as the Pack evaluated them in the transfer portal.

“Watching those two guys in the league, they were able to see the highs and lows and the great games,” Keatts said. “If you go back to Miami, Mike was unbelievable from three. Brandon probably has been a little bit more consistent, but he was almost a double-double guy in our league.”

James scored a season-best 26 points with a 5-for-6 mark from three at Miami, like Keatts referenced, while Huntley-Hatfield averaged 12.9 points and 8.4 rebounds a game with the Cardinals this past season.

But Huntley-Hatfield’s recruitment in the transfer portal was not like any of the other three players NC State was able to secure commitments from. Instead, the Wolfpack was pursuing the big man during its run to the Final Four. The red and white got him on campus for an official visit in between the Elite Eight win over Duke and its flight to Phoenix for the national semifinal.

Keatts, who was in the midst of his deepest NCAA Tournament run as a head coach, thought Huntley-Hatfield’s recruitment was a challenge during a high-pressure time in the postseason.

“It was one of the hardest things we did,” Keatts said. “I wish the portal wouldn’t open up during the Final Four run or during the NCAA because it puts the teams that worked hard to get there at a little bit of a disadvantage compared to the guys that didn’t make it. I thought we did a good job of landing him, especially during the run.”

After Huntley-Hatfield committed to the Wolfpack in early April, NC State gained Styles’ pledge two weeks later. The former Hoya was an NC State target out of Kinston (N.C.) High, but he went to UNC for his first two seasons. When he was in the portal the first time, Keatts tried again, but to no avail.

Though the Wolfpack struck out twice, Keatts tried once more after Styles went into the portal with one year remaining — and it paid off.

“Some of those times it just wasn’t a great fit, not necessarily for him, it could have been on both ends of it,” Keatts said of his previous pursuits of Styles. “He saw an opportunity with some guys graduating and I think it’s a good fit. Him getting a chance to go play in the Big East and play the schedule that he played is certainly going to benefit him and us.”

Styles excelled in his first collegiate season of playing time. He averaged 12.8 points and 5.8 rebounds in 33.5 minutes a game with the Hoyas. That came after he played less than six minutes a game and didn’t average more than 2.0 points a night in a pair of seasons with the Tar Heels.

Keatts thought Styles’ season on the wing in the nation’s capital was more reminiscent of his four-star hype out of high school than what he displayed in his first two seasons at UNC.

“He had a really, really good year at Georgetown,” Keatts said of Styles. “The only negative about the year is that they didn’t win enough games. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s on him, but you had a chance to see flashes of the guy we all know and remember from high school.”

James’ commitment followed Styles before Hill rounded out the Wolfpack’s transfer portal haul three days later. Hill, a former junior college standout guard, had a similar path to NC State as DJ Horne, the Pack’s leading scorer from the Final Four run. They both started at the mid-major level, but worked their way into carving out a role with the Wolfpack.

Hill paced Bowling Green with 20.5 points on 44.3% shooting from the field this past season — his first year at the Division I level. While he was able to fill the basket, Hill was among the best in the country at getting to the free throw line with the 24th-most attempts (219) and the 37th-most makes (162) from the charity stripe this past year.

That stood out to Keatts the most in the transfer portal.

“He’s a guy that can really score the basketball,” Keatts said of Hill. “When I watched him on tape it reminded me, as far as getting to the free throw line, of Judah Mintz. He’s a guy that lives at the free throw line, but also is a very capable scorer from outside. He has a nice mid-range game and is also a lot better three-point shooter than he probably gets credit for.”

While the Wolfpack was able to fill its needs in the transfer portal, it was able to pull one of its own players back from the NCAA’s wild west. Rising senior forward Ernest Ross , best known for his bench celebrations during the Final Four run, initially entered the portal in April and later committed to UTSA.

It seemed like NC State needed to replace him with a backup forward, though there were not many options left in the transfer portal. Then, Ross changed his mind and decided to return to the Wolfpack, electing to finish his collegiate career where it started.

Keatts welcomed him back and it filled the final scholarship NC State had going into the summer.

“I think the biggest thing for Ernest and the turning point of him returning to NC State is that he really wanted to be here,” Keatts said. “He really wanted to continue with guys that he had been around and graduating from NC State was very important to him. That came a lot into the decision making of it.”

Now, the Wolfpack will spend the summer working together, looking to gel together with the four new transfers, while a pair of freshmen — Trey Parker and Paul McNeil — will look to help NC State build off the Final Four run.

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