After a season of close calls, where does NC State go from here?

The ending of N.C. State’s season was consistent with the rest of its season.

There were exciting moments in Wednesday’s thrilling 94-93 loss to Lipscomb in the NIT and coach Kevin Keatts got the maximum effort out of his players.

There was anger at the officials by the fans and end-game lapses by the Wolfpack on Wednesday. Senior Torin Dorn poured everything he had into the game, star guard Markell Johnson was brilliant for stretches — and disappeared for others — and ultimately it was a close call.

It was an “almost” kind of year for the Wolfpack. It almost got over the hump against the best teams in the ACC. It almost made the NCAA tournament. It almost made it to New York for the NIT semifinals.

For the most part, N.C. State won the games it was supposed to and lost the games it was supposed to.

Throw out the lowest scoring game by an ACC team in the shot-clock era (a 47-24 loss to Virginia Tech) and N.C. State was an efficient offensive team (No. 33 in the KenPom rankings). The overall defensive efficiency rating improved from last season (101.8 to 98.0) but that was aided by a weak schedule outside the ACC.

N.C. State finished the regular season at No. 33 in the NCAA’s new metric, the NET rankings. The Wolfpack was the highest-rated team to miss the NCAA tournament field.

On the balance, a 24-12 record with nine ACC wins, is better than where the program was when Keatts took over in 2017.

You could conclude, the 2018-19 season was almost as good as Keatts’ debut, which ended in the NCAA tournament.

“We’ve won 45 games in two years,” Keatts said “That’s pretty good. Now we want to continue. We want to continue to build the program. We want to get continue to get guys better.”

For Keatts, the offseason comes with his team falling one win short of the NIT semifinals and a trip to New York. Lipscomb, after 44 points from Garrison Mathews, will carry on. Keatts will get to work on the 2019-20 season.

The major issues going forward:

End-game execution

N.C. State had a 91-89 lead with 24 seconds left on Wednesday when it turned the ball over on an inbounds pass under its own basket.

For a team that presses as much as it does, N.C. State doesn’t appear to have a set pressbreak. Johnson is relied upon to get open and often without the help of a screen. Against Lipscomb’s man pressure, Torin Dorn forced the inbounds pass to Johnson and Kenny Cooper stole it.

There were many plays in an a tight, tense game on Wednesday but that was N.C. State’s best chance to win. Get the ball inbounds, make the free throws, go to New York.

That didn’t happen.

The Wolfpack had similar end-game miscues in losses to Wisconsin, Louisville, Virginia and Florida State. Keatts pointed out his team did execute in a pair of wins over Clemson and one at Pittsburgh but he did say he would review those end-game situations.

“I’m a guy that shoots for perfection and so if there’s an area where I think we need to improve, then we’ll go to work and we’ll try to get better in that area,” Keatts said.

“That’s what good programs and good coaches and good players do: they improve on their weaknesses and get better for the next season.”

Markell Johnson’s future

Johnson was, inarguably, N.C. State’s most important player. The three games the 6-1 point junior guard missed in January with a sore back derailed some of the team’s momentum after a 14-2 start.

Johnson carried the offensive load over the final four weeks of the season. His season averages (12.6 points and 4.2 assists per game) don’t illustrate his true worth. He averaged 17.3 points over the final nine games.

“He led our team,” Keatts said. “He made big shots for us when he needed to. Our team started to rely on him to make those shots and, for the most part, he did.”

Johnson had 27 points in the December win over Auburn, the team’s best win of the season, and he had a team-best six 20-point games.

But even in Wednesday’s game, Keatts benched Johnson at the start of the second half for some defensive lapses. Keatts left Johnson on the bench while Lipscomb was making a run and backup guard Blake Harris was turning the ball over.

When Keatts did bring Johnson back in, Johnson scored 11 straight points in one stretch to push the Wolfpack back into the lead. It was Johnson’s driving layup with 9.6 seconds left, which gave the team a brief 93-92 lead.

Keatts said he is hard on Johnson because he’s always going to be hard on his point guard. He said Johnson had a “tremendous year” but added a qualifier.

“I’ve been all on him about being consistent,” Keatts said. “I thought he got consistent but, that being said, he still has to get better in a lot of areas.”

Johnson has NBA-level quickness and athletic ability. He will have to make a decision about his pro career. He is likely, in the least, to go through the draft process to determine his NBA stock.

Roster continuity

One of the main reasons N.C. State athletic director Debbie Yow fired coach Mark Gottfried in 2017 was for a lack of roster consistency and player development.

Understandably, Keatts lost four players during or after his first season. That’s par for a coaching a transition. The loss of forward Omer Yurtseven (who transferred to Georgetown) hurt this team the most but Yurtseven’s decision to leave was mostly out of Keatts’ control.

Since the start of this season, Keatts lost one player he recruited (forward Ian Steere) and one signed as a transfer (forward Sacha Killeya-Jones from Kentucky).

A third he signed (Saddiq Bey) but released from his National Letter of Intent last spring, ended up as a starter for Villanova and averaged 8.2 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.

Keatts said after the Lipscomb loss he understands the importance of keeping and developing players.

“I’ve always come from a background where development is huge,” Keatts said. “Some of the guys, we want to break down their game down and get better in their areas and then move the program forward.”

Seven of N.C. State’s top eight scorers are eligible to return. Forward Manny Bates, a top-100 recruit last year, should be healthy after redshirting this season with a shoulder injury.

N.C. State has lost eight transfers over the past five years. How many players will come back next season?

“I hope that everybody will return,” Keatts said. “Now, obviously, I know you guys read. Right now there’s almost 400 guys in the transfer portal. So you never know. From my standpoint, I would love for everybody for stay and to help continue to build the program.”

Keatts has four available scholarships: the two from Steere and Killeya-Jones and two more with the exit of Dorn and Eric Lockett, the two seniors on the roster.

Dorn led the team in scoring (14.0 points per game) and rebounding (7.2) and epitomized Keatts’ directive for maximum effort. Lockett, a graduate transfer, averaged 4.4 points in a reserve role.

Keatts has signed four-star guard Jalen Lecque in the class of 2019 and has a commitment from four-star guard Dereon Seabron. There is room to add two more players.

This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 2:23 PM.