Six months ago, it was announced that NC State’s Men’s Basketball team would be playing in the 2025 Maui Invitational. At the time of the announcement, NC State, Oregon, Seton Hall, Texas, UNLV, USC, Baylor and Chaminade were listed as being in the prestigious tournament. Today it was announced that Arizona State and Washington State have been added to the field, and the field is officially set.

The 42nd Maui Invitational will be played in the Lahaina Civic Center on November 24-26, 2025.

This will be the Wolfpack’s first time ever playing in the Maui Invitational.

Senior Guard Jayden Taylor met with the media after NC State’s 79-75 Exhibition win over Lees-McRae on Wednesday night. Taylor led the Wolfpack with 12 points and 5 assists. You can watch the video ABOVE and read the transcript BELOW.

What’s Coach Keatts’ message after that one?

We know that that wasn’t who we were in the second half. It was just our last rehearsal for the season, so just keep our heads high and come in on Monday and the real thing starts.

What’s your message to these guys as you look back on tonight, your takeaways and what you say to them moving forward as you get ready for the real thing now?

I say we just got to come out and play better in the second half.

The first half we played pretty well, defended well. Second half, they shot high. Those are percentages.

We want to take that away and be disruptive. Second half, we just didn’t have that tonight.

What do you think contributed to the second half struggles?

I think it was just like Coach Keatts said, it’s our last rehearsal, so it’s just, this is a new group.

We haven’t played together very much. I say that’s what it is, really. We just haven’t played together very much, so we just got to kind of find that chemistry, and then we’ll get rolling.

It seemed like there were some struggles in the transition defense for the most part. Do you feel like that was just breakdowns, or is that something that’s just communication.

Honestly, communication and effort. We just got to get back and talk and tell people where we are, and the guys got to hustle back.

Last season, I think there was a tight exhibition game as well. Can you draw from that experience?

Last year, I think we won by 10. So, I mean, like, it’s our last dress rehearsal. We got a real game on Monday.

We’ll be ready on Monday.

How do you think the team responded? You were going from those big leads, to them trimming it down in the second half, not coming with the sense of urgency in the second half.

I think we responded well.

Obviously, we got to be better. If we don’t allow, myself included, I missed two of them right there. But I think we responded pretty well for the most part, just kind of keeping our heads high, because that is kind of, when you see a lead, you crumble like that.

So, I think we kept our composure, and we ended up taking that. It would have been worse if we obviously lost. So, at least we were able to hang on and win.

Now, we just got to go back to the drawing board and get better.

Obviously, you want to win by a larger margin, but I feel like there’s some lessons that you can take away from this as well?

I say you can’t really come in here in a basketball game and take anybody for granted. Any given night, anybody can beat you. So, I say that’s what it is, honestly.

Just coming in every night and knowing it doesn’t matter who the school is at. They want to win.

How do you think the team will go from each game last year, you all hunting the teams, to you all being hunted this year? 

I mean, that’s kind of what you want. I mean, pressure is a privilege. That’s what I say.

I like to say teams want to beat us because of what we did last season. That just gives us more motivation. So, I mean, we don’t really think about it too much.

At the end of the day, we’re going to come in and be NC State. Tonight in that second half, that wasn’t who we were. And we know that.

So, we’ll be better.

What did you learn from having to play in a tough game?

I expect it like that. I mean, it shows you who guys really are.

So guys have to step up. You’ve got to be composed, like I was saying. It does hurt to see a lead like that crumble.

But it tests you. And we needed that test, honestly. So, obviously, it would be worse to come out with a loss.

I’m just happy we won.

You guys were in here for a little bit before we got to come in. Was there anything special said?

No, I wouldn’t say that.

I just talked amongst the locker room. Obviously, we weren’t happy with the second half. So, we were just talking about it and seeing how we could fix it and be better.

What was the kind of takeaway you guys had?

We just got to come out in the second half and play better. Just be more together. We didn’t play together in that second half.

So, just be together. And, obviously, everything will come together.

Does it simply just take time for players to know roles and expectations?

Yeah, I think it takes a while.

Obviously, it’s our last practice. We play on Monday. That’s when it really starts.

So, I say, yeah, it’s going to take some time for everybody to come together.

Last night NC State squeaked out a 79-75 victory over Lees-McRae in their lone exhibition game of the 2024-25 Men’s Basketball season. The Wolfpack was without Junior Mike James (Louisville Transfer) and Sophomore Dennis Parker Jr. NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts gave an update on the status of both players after the game in his postgame press conference.

So Dennis has had a string of bad luck. Before the scrimmage, he turned his ankle. He was practicing his way back.

He’s playing well. He turned his other ankle. So I don’t know.

I don’t know if we got to switch his shoes or whatever.

Mike’s going to be out for about three or four games, maybe, hopefully. I don’t know.

He had to get his knee scoped. Nothing major, but, you know, I don’t know. I would expect him to be out maybe the next two or three weeks, could even creep up to four weeks.

Parker Jr. has sprained both of his ankles recently. While the severity of the most recent sprain was not given, it’s a good sign that the injury is relatively minor.

James on the other hand had his knee scoped, and according to Keatts, he could possibly miss 3 or 4 games. A few sentences later, he said he could miss 2-3 weeks, and possibly 4.

If James missed 2 weeks, he would miss 3 games. If he missed 3 weeks, he would miss 5 games. If he missed 4 weeks, he would miss 7 games.

In a perfect world, James would be back before NC State heads out to California to play in the Rady Children’s Invitational where they will play #14 Purdue, in a rematch of the Final Four. The next day, they will play either #24 Ole Miss or BYU.

Last night, Marcus Hill started for the Wolfpack, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a healthy James would start over him.

NC State defeated Lees-McRae last night in their lone exhibition game of the 2024-25 season. Wolfpack Head Coach Kevin Keatts broke the game down in his postgame press conference afterwards. The transcript is below.

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Last dress rehearsal, and I think we can learn a lot from our secret scrimmage. We can also learn a lot from our last 20 minutes. I thought we did a really good job in our first 20 minutes.

Second half, I started big guys against small guys, and we came out and we turned the ball over three straight times. It’s a lot that we can learn from this.

As crazy as this sounds, I would much rather have this game than have a 40-point win because I don’t get a chance to see guys be able to react and who’s going to make free throws and who’s gonna be good at the end. I reminded our guys this, and I’ll remind you guys of this too, last year Mount Olive was 89-79, and we’re ACC champs.

I played 11 guys. I didn’t call one timeout until the end. I just wanted the guys to play through some different stuff.

I could have stopped a couple runs, but I wanted our guys to figure it out, and then we would get better for it. And so I like it. You know now we’ve got their attention to a couple things we’ve got to clean up. I thought we fouled too much, and it’s weird because we had too many offensive fouls. Also, you know we talked about Brandon (Huntley-Hatfield) and those guys.

It’s a little tougher when you’re playing against smaller guys. If it’s a big vs. big, typically they don’t call those things. But they did.

But this is it now. We’re going to take off tomorrow, and we’re going to prepare Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then, we’re into a new season, and I’m excited about it.

I think we’ve got a lot to look forward to and a lot to build on.

What was your message in the locker room after that one?

I just said, ‘hey, you’ve got to play better than we did in the second half. And a lot of that is what I did and what they didn’t do or what they did and what I did or all those type of things.

And so I just said I wanted us to play a little bit better. We had some combinations out there that I’ve never seen in practice, but I was throwing guys in and out and all that other stuff. I know you guys and people will look at it different. With me, I’m just trying to get through the game with nobody getting hurt and throw a bunch of guys out there to get a little chance to play in front of a smaller crowd.

Thoughts on Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Ben Middlebrooks

Yeah, I just never thought they got involved. I just I thought, they were digging down and they just never was aggressive. And then Ben got aggressive and then we missed a lot of shots around the rim that we left out there.

And I don’t worry about those guys. I’ve seen those guys play the high level. I know how good they’re going to be.

It’s great, though, like as a coach, you can go back and say, ‘hey, you think you’re pretty good. Let me show you the second half.’ So it’s really good for us.

It’s a great learning experience. You guys know I love motivating, and so I’ll get an opportunity to say, ‘hey, this is what we got to get better at.’

These are the things we got to work on. I just I didn’t think our bench really got involved as much.

Can you talk about Michael O’Connell’s growth as a leader? It seemed like his presence out there sort of calmed the storm.

This was his first time…he practiced I want to say yesterday, and maybe the day before yesterday. We hadn’t even had him in practice, but it makes it better. I came into this this game wanting to play him so he could be in shape. So I knew I was going to play him for a lot of minutes because he hadn’t had any game experience.

He didn’t play in the scrimmage. He hadn’t practiced. So I wanted him to get his wind up.

But he’s a really good player. He’s solid. His leadership is good.

There’s no panic in him. He knew what he was doing when it was towards the end of the game.

What do you think this says more about your team, Coach, that throughout the duration of last year, a lot of times you all were hunting the other teams, and this year you have a big target on your back. But your team, you know, weathered the storm late second half still got a W.

I don’t think this particular game says anything about us. If it was a regular game, we would have played it completely different.

I mean, they were aggressive. They’re going to play hard. And it gives us problems because we try to play bigger and everything else.

But I’m not going to take anything from the team. I’m going to get better in the areas we got to get better. I just thought we missed too many free throws.

I thought we turned the ball over. Those are things that we can control.

Has it been harder integrating the numerous new faces that you do have in the roster this year compared to years past?

No, it’s going to be like this every year.

I mean, we’ve got eight guys. Last year we had eight guys. Next year we’re going to have eight guys. Year after that we’re going to have eight guys. So it’s always going to be tough. And so I look at it as you got to figure it out and get better from day-to-day, practice to practice.

And that’s all it is.

You didn’t call timeouts. You wanted them to figure things out? What type of resolve did you see from them?

I thought they were great. I didn’t want to, you know, they looking over at me and I’m looking at them like, ‘I’m not calling a timeout.’

You got to play through this stuff. I’m not going to call it. You got to figure it out.

The only time I called a timeout the entire game was when we went up four and I said, ‘hey, you’re up four at the end, don’t foul.’ But it’s a teaching experience.

Like Trey Parker, I had an opportunity in this game because I put him in at the end of the game and instead of dribbling the ball out, he threw a cross-court pass. See, that’s good. That’s a game situation where I can teach him how to be really good in that situation.

I thought Ben (Middlebrooks) could have been better at the free-throw line. He missed two. Trez (Styles) missed free-throws. JT (Jayden Taylor) missed free-throws.

And so now we got to figure out now how do you step up in those situations and make those free-throws. But, no, I mean, I came into the game. I’m saying I’m not calling a one-time-out.

I want to figure out how this works. I want to let these guys play through some stuff, and that’s what we did.

Bryce Heard did a lot of little things early on when the team, I believe, tied for the team lead at the half, seven points and three rebounds. Just your thoughts on what he’s done this offseason and how much he’s kind of pushing the veteran guys ahead?

You know, he’s starting to feel comfortable. And what makes Bryce be able to get on the floor, I don’t know how much he’s going to play as a freshman, but what helps him is he’s got a really strong knowledge of the game. He knows how to play.

Where most freshmen, you’re trying to figure out, defensively, how do you not be a liability and be able to score offensively, he’s starting to get it a little bit. He understands spacing. He knows how to cut.

And so that’s going to help him. I think the other 2 guys, as they get to playing a little bit more, I think they’ll feel comfortable. Paul McNeil is not shooting the ball well now because of the fact that he’s working harder now than he’s ever worked in his life. But once he starts getting in better shape, he’ll start making those type of shots that he used to make in high school.

How important is Breon Pass’ growth to this team?

Well, I think anytime you got a guy who has been here for four years and understands what the program’s about and how hard we compete, I mean, you can’t substitute that. And I think Breon’s going to be able to help us a little more this year than he’s done in the past.

How much are you looking forward getting to raise two banners?

I’m excited. I mean, listen, I can sit up here and tell you guys, man, that I’m not. I would be lying to you.

I mean, you think about it. I mean, how often do you get to raise two banners? I don’t care what sport you’re in. I mean, it’s been a long time.

And, you know, when you look up in those rafters, we came over here and practiced a couple of days. And, man, I see, you know, 83 and I see 74. And, man, what unbelievable championships they were.

We didn’t win a national championship. But you don’t have anything that’s current. Like most of you guys in this room have never seen a championship until we got it this year.

I’m happy for our fans. I’m happy for our students. I’m happy for our team.

I’m happy for our city. I’m happy for ACC basketball because we were able to deliver something that hasn’t happened in such a long time with a team that no one expected to happen. And that’s beautiful.

Like, we don’t take it for granted. Like, that’s a beautiful thing, ACC champions.

Are you kidding me? Five games, five days.

Yeah, I’m excited. I may act like I’m not, but I’m telling you, man, I’m pumped up about that. I’m excited because I’m going to sit there and be able to look up there and watch and see, knowing that I was a part of that as the coach here.

Do you have an update on Dennis (Parker Jr.) or Mike James?

So Dennis has had a string of bad luck. Before the scrimmage, he turned his ankle. He was practicing his way back.

He’s playing well. He turned his other ankle. So I don’t know.

I don’t know if we got to switch his shoes or whatever.

Mike’s going to be out for about three or four games, maybe, hopefully. I don’t know.

He had to get his knee scoped. Nothing major, but, you know, I don’t know. I would expect him to be out maybe the next two or three weeks, could even creep up to four weeks.

So we’re probably going to be going without him for a while. I mean, we’ve been banged up a little bit. Michael’s been banged up a little bit.

We didn’t have a couple of guys. Ish (Diouf) was out a couple of days. So honestly, having 11 guys or 11 scholarship guys today, that was the most that we’ve had in probably the last two or three weeks.

And so we got to get healthy. This team hasn’t had a chance to be on the court practicing together because we had so many guys out. And so we got to figure out now how to try to stay healthy so we can practice together so it shows in the game.