This Isn’t Just a Basketball Story, It’s an Inspiration for Minnesotans

Life can be challenging. Sometimes despite our best efforts, things don’t turn out the way we hoped. Disappointments are difficult to deal with for sure. Continuing to push through knowing that the outcome is likely to be not what we want it to be is very hard. 

A few years ago, I found this video from Steve Harvey talking about his “turn-back moment” and how his career began to unfold after years of struggling. (video contains bleeped out curse words)

It still serves me well. A good reminder to never lose faith.  

Even if you’re a Luke-warm sports fan, you’ve likely heard about what the North Carolina State University Men’s Basketball team has done over the last few weeks enroute to earning an appearance in this weekend’s “Final Four”. 

The Wolfpack were the 10th seed in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament a few weeks back. The ACC Tournament starts on a Tuesday and wraps up on Saturday night. To win the Tournament, and earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament, N.C. State would have to win 5 games in 5 days.  

That’s five consecutive days playing some of the nation’s best college competition. Even the NBA doesn’t play that many games in a row, especially when a championship and playoff berth are on the line.  

I’m from North Carolina and still follow ACC basketball regularly and have a deep love for the ACC Tournament. Everyone who covers the sport was talking about the fact that when N.C. State lost, the Coach, Kevin Keatts, would most likely be fired.  

Coach Keatts and his Wolfpack had to beat Duke, and then needed a last second shot following a missed free throw from Virginia to force overtime to advance to the championship of the ACC tournament.  

The Wolfpack would then need to beat North Carolina in that game to even make the NCAA Tournament, which obviously they did.  

Since Tuesday March 12th, N.C. State has won nine games in a row heading into this weekend’s Final Four. One of the wins came against Duke for a second time in 16 days.  Those nine wins come after they lost the last four games of the regular season.  

If you’ve ever worked closely with a program that has been in this situation, it’s not a comfortable space to be in. Even though Coaches may not focus on the rumor mill, they know what the score is, meaning they realize their job is likely to come to an end. 

Coach Kevin Keatts was so close to being fired, one more loss and he’s likely done. Since winning the last 9 games, his contract was automatically extended for two more years, now through 2030.  

Plus, he’s earned several hundred thousand dollars more in incentive bonuses because of his team’s recent push into the last four teams standing.  

The point here is to focus on the result you want, not the result that seems to be emanate. Control what you can control. I've heard Coach Keatts and his players recently talk about believing in their plan and one another.  

There are a lot of us out there facing situations that sometimes appear to be bigger than our faith or hope, but then you see this story, and it serves as a good reminder that impossible situations sometimes aren’t really impossible, we just need to get a few breaks and then take advantage when they come.  

No matter if N.C. State wins the National Championship or not, Coach Keatts' drive and work ethic, combined with his team's belief and faith seems nearly to be as big a story as winning it all.  

As far as the future goes for N.C. State Men's Basketball, they're in a much better position than they were in a month ago. There's old saying that goes something like this, “you couldn’t afford the advertising and attention” that this coach, team and university has gotten over the last few weeks. What young basketball player wouldn't want to be a part of something like this?