Kevin Keatts discusses NC State’s trip to the Bahamas

NC State will lead college basketball in trips to the Bahamas this year with two. The Wolfpack will be down there for the Battle 4 Atlantis over Thanksgiving, and this weekend they’re heading down to play a couple of exhibition games.

Schools are allowed these summer trips every few years, though obviously it’s been a while since it’s been possible to take them. This is as good a time as any for the Pack to take advantage of extra practices and start getting this team full of newcomers more comfortable playing together.

Kevin Keatts met with the media to discuss the trip and some other things, including his squad’s injury situation. Unfortunately, Greg Gantt won’t be able to play thanks to a finger injury which Keatts said is likely to keep the forward out for a month. Ernest Ross, meanwhile, is fully cleared to play but isn’t quite 100% recovered from the ankle injury he suffered in January.

New big man Dusan Mahorcic won’t be making the trip, though that doesn’t appear to be injury-related.

The Wolfpack will play a team from the Bahamas as well as the Puerto Rican national team. Keatts isn’t much worried about the results of those games as he is about just getting a feel for his group’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a “fact-finding mission,” as he put it.

NC State will be in the Bahamas from the sixth until the 11th. I don’t imagine there will be any way to watch the Pack play, short of being there in person.