Kevin Keatts’ summer press conference: Markell Johnson, scheduling, the Italy trip, recruiting, and more

Kevin Keatts held court for the first time during NC State basketball’s annual summer press conference on Tuesday. He talked about a lot of different things, from roster management to the Italy trip to expectations for the upcoming season. The Wolfpacker has the full audio from the presser.

A handful of quick notes from that discussion:

— Markell Johnson will travel with the team to Italy and as of now appears to be in good shape academically. Keatts is happy with his players’ results from the first summer session.

— Keatts still has some games to fill in NC State’s non-conference schedule. He also re-iterates how tough the Battle 4 Atlantis field could be, and also how many league games are gonna be against good teams. He did not say that they are going to schedule soft outside of those obligations, but you can rest assured that’s what they’re doing. Welcome to rebuilding

— Keatts says the message he’s heard from fans is that they can live with whatever results may come this year as long as the team plays hard.

— Omer Yurtseven has been playing with Turkey’s junior team and will not play for the Wolfpack in Italy.

— Case Commons, which is a new dorm facility for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, has an ETA of roughly August 2019.