Kevin Keatts the latest successful branch of Rick Pitino’s coaching tree

Shown here with former boss Rick Pitino, Kevin Keatts (left) has used what he learned at Louisville to guide him as a head coach as he leads NC State into Final Four. (Photo by the Louisville Courier-Journal)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Kevin Keatts can still recall one of the first rude awakenings of his career after he had just been hired by Rick Pitino.

Keatts, previously the head coach at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia before replacing Steve Masiello on Pitino’s staff at Louisville in 2011, was introduced to a different world seemingly from the onset.

“There was one practice where we just got there,” he said Thursday as his NC State team prepares to face Purdue Saturday in the Wolfpack’s first Final Four appearance since the late Jim Valvano won a national championship in 1983. “We got this Hall of Fame coach, he’s working his butt off. I’m standing over there looking, I wasn’t saying anything. We had a great practice.”

Shortly after, Pitino called Keatts and fellow assistant coach Wyking Jones into his office.

“We were going over like, ‘I wonder what Coach wants,’” Keatts said. “He’s probably going to tell us how good we have a chance to be. He ripped us. We just had a great practice, but he ripped us because we weren’t participating enough.”

Pitino, now the head coach at St. John’s, has often preached two-way communication in practices and games, something that almost all of his assistants — namely Masiello during his tenure at Manhattan and Kevin Willard at Iona, Seton Hall and Maryland — have taken with them to their own programs when hired as head coaches. For Keatts, the browbeating served as a baptism by fire, but also a reminder that the Hall of Fame mentor was preparing him for the future in much the same vein he grooms his players for careers both at the next level and after basketball.

“When he hired me, he said, ‘I don’t hire assistant coaches, I hire future head coaches,’” Keatts said of Pitino’s rationale. “He didn’t get me to Louisville to be just a recruiter. He held me responsible to be a better coach, to do scouting, to do everything else. The thing that I’ll tell you about Coach Pitino, that has helped me grow, is he never put me in a box.”

Pitino’s imprint on Keatts and his style of play is evident, and his former disciple shares the same emphasis on deflections that is common throughout the Pitino coaching tree, with a goal of 40 in each game for NC State. It is also noticeable in how Keatts has planted seeds for the future within his own staff.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve taken some of that with me with my coaches,” he said of the long-term aspect of the job. “I’ve got two guys who worked under me that I hope I did the same thing for in A.W. Hamilton (the Eastern Kentucky head coach who assisted and replaced Keatts at Hargrave and rejoined him at NC State) and Takayo Siddle (the head coach at UNCW), who have done a great job.”

“The biggest quality you can have as a head coach is preparing your assistant coaches to have that opportunity. I’ve got plenty of coaches that were assistant coaches for me in Division I that have moved on. I think the biggest thing is to share your knowledge and your growth with somebody else, so they can have the opportunity that I have.”