After losing at No. 2-ranked Duke in late January, eighth-year NC State basketball head coach Kevin Keatts noted that he might’ve won if he had Cooper Flagg, the Blue Devils’ 18-year-old clear frontrunner for ACC Player of the Year and national honors.

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Flagg grew up a Duke basketball fan. No doubt that helped the Blue Devils reel in the projected one-and-done No. 1 overall draft pick.

However, Duke’s success in the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, not to mention the Blue Devils’ truckloads of five-stars and formidable transfers of late despite all-time wins leader Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement, is also largely due to forward-thinking head coach Jon Scheyer.

Over six months ahead of his debut 2022-23 campaign, Scheyer went out and hired dynamic general manager Rachel Baker to help Duke — now arguably the favorite to win this year’s national championship — navigate and excel in the new NIL scene.

Meanwhile, over in Raleigh, Keatts fell short of generating much excitement courtesy of last year’s transfer portal.

By his own admission several times this season, NC State’s roster construction didn’t feature a top-shelf weapon. That’s despite the Wolfpack’s standing as the defending ACC Tournament champion and the Cinderella program that upset Duke in the 2024 Elite Eight.

Now that a postseason is a pipe dream for the Wolfpack (11-18, 4-14 ACC), sitting next to last in the conference standings with two games remaining, Keatts told the ACC media on Monday that he and his crew will look into the possibility of hiring a GM after the season ends:

“Yeah, that’ll be something that we will discuss in the offseason. We haven’t. We’re paying attention.

“We do understand kind of how this thing is shifting a little bit, but it’s not something that we’ve talked about that we’re definitely going to do. Haven’t ruled anything out, but it’s something that I’m watching to see: is that something will help our program?”

Well, based on NC State’s current ACC standing, logic says such a move could hardly hurt. After all, the program looks to be approaching rock bottom in light of the fact that Keatts and his cohorts proved unable to capitalize on last year’s huge momentum gift on their own.

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