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Roster Building: Bench Potential – RJ Keene
Roster Building: Bench Potential – RJ Keene
Basketball news & notes:
Rumor central – The Pack may open the season against some Fighting Camels
Snelly is back! – Jordan Snell hired on Wolfpack staff as grad assistant
NCAA: Wichita has been selected as the second site (along with Dayton) for the opening round of the expanded 76 team NCAA tournament. Each city will host three games the Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday. The opening round will feature the 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNCAA: For the 2026-27 season, officials will prioritize enforcement in the following areas:
Post play physicality.
Offensive three-second violations.
Freedom of movement.
Traveling.
Getting called for 3 seconds has been rare in recent decades and post play has gotten rough. We should expect some 40+ foul nights early in the season.
NC State scored a recruiting coup when they signed “the best player in college basketball that doesn’t score (BPICBTDS).” But wait, did they?
Coach Gainey had described the type of players he wanted and Patrick Stacy said, “I’ve got a guy.” And Stacy kept repeating that until Coach Gainey agreed to look at film. He liked what he saw – on the defensive end, and they gave RJ a call. And that was pretty much it. No muss, no fuss, no bidding war, he didn’t even wait for the recruiting visit. (which he took later)
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThis will go down in NC State lore as one of the great recruiting ‘diamond in the rough’ stories … or it won’t.
RJ Keene is the team’s senior statesman from the great state of Texas. He was in the class of 2021, was 3-stars, 247 ranks him #350. As a HS senior, he averaged 19 ppg / 9.1 rpg / 4.2 apg and 2.5 steals. Although his 3PT% dropped to 30% his senior season (145 attempts), as a junior he hit 38%. He was a 37% shooter for his 3-year varsity career, attempting 694 3PT shots. He was all-state twice and scored over 2000 points in his career.
Fun Fact: During RJ’s junior season he took (352) and made (135) 3PT shots – both more than Paul McNeil ever did in a season during his high school career.
He had interests from North Texas, Hawaii, Grand Canyon, Louisiana, Rice, and (coincidentally) McNeese State among others. He eventually went for the cold weather up in Boise (so cold, their football field turned blue). He elected to take a redshirt his freshman season and had the bad luck to be injured in his second season and didn’t play at all.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement’23-’24 – after sitting two seasons, he started slowly, playing in 21 games, 9.8 minutes per game, no starts, shooting 34.1% / 18.2% / 55.6%. He averaged 1.8 ppg / 2.0 rpg / 0.7 apg.
’24-’25 – he started 11 of 36 games, he still wasn’t shooting much (1.8 attempted FG per game) but his total rebounds increased from 42 to 161, his assists from 15 to 55, his steals from 7 to 25. He shot 38.5% / 22% / 68.2% and averaged 2.1 ppg / 4.5 rpg / 1.5 apg.
’25-’26 – he started 24 of 31 and dialed up his shot attempts to 2.5 per game, and his 3PT shooting improved, shooting 38% / 34.5% / 50%. He averaged 2.6 ppg / 4.6 rpg / 1.9 apg.
‘25-‘26 Boise State Bronco – An unusual profile
BSU (20-12 / 12-8) finished 6th in the mountain west conference this season. RJ started 24 games and averaged 22.2 minutes (similar minutes as the Pack’s Matt Able) last season. Let’s look at his role.
RJ was good at the blocking / tackling for the Broncos …
Rebounds – 4th best on the team
Assists – 3rd best on the team
Steals – tied for 2nd (3-way)
Blocks – tied for 3rd
,,, and he was an excellent defender. Evan Miya ranked him the best defender on the team and the second best defender in their conference – these are really good stats …
DBPR 2.39 (for comparison, Copeland led the Wolfpack with 2.71, Keene would rank second)
Box DBPR 1.34
Adj Team Def Eff 98.6
… but his usage numbers were extremely low for a starter. All of these scores were the lowest on his team.
Torvik Usage – 8.6 (for comparison Sagnia was the lowest on the Wolfpack at 11.4)
KenPom %Poss – 8.6 (same as above)
KenPom %Shots – 8.2 (for comparison, Ebube was the lowest on the Wolfpack at 8.1)
On the offensive end of the court, he would rather pass than shoot. He had an excellent 3.7 Assist / Turnover ratio but was just a little timid with his shot. For his career at BSU, he averaged 2.1 FG attempts per game and made 0.8 of them.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLet’s compare his 3-season (88 game) career shooting stats with last season’s Wolfpack players’ single season shooting stats, just to put RJ’s in perspective.
So what do you do with our “glue guy?” The guy that said, “Coach, if I come to NC State, man, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll run through a wall. I’ll get every loose ball. I just want to win.”
Point Guard? – Nope – Edmead is a star and might lead the team in minutes per game. He will start and backup will come from Adams / Hammond / Whitty
Shooting Guard? – I don’t think so. One needs to shoot the ball occasionally. Hammond starts and backup will be Adams.
Center? – Just kidding – Evans will start and backup will come from Hall / Jurkovic / Wilkins.
Forward? – Possible – Yalaho or Jurkovic (let’s say Yalaho, for now) will start, and Jurkovic will be first off the bench. Yalaho averaged 28.4 mins per game last season, Jurkovic 22.3. Obviously, that doesn’t dictate usage this season, but they are solid, regular rotation players who should average over 30 cumulative minutes. And Wilkins will get what he earns. Unless one of them is a bust (unlikely), not a lot of minutes left. ‘Small ball forward?’ Is there any indication that he’s more athletic than the other three? No idea, yet.
Wing? – McNeil averaged 28.6 minutes per game last season and will probably average something similar this season. That leaves a slice for RJ.
Is he a 3 & D guy?
He’s made 32 total 3PT shots at a 27.1% clip for the last five seasons (3 active). Despite what Patrick Stacy said about his potential, I don’t think he’s a ‘3’ guy in college. He might improve his percentage, like Copeland last season, but probably not his volume. But he appears to be a very good ‘D’ guy. (But, but what about those gaudy high school 3PT numbers mentioned above?? Dude, that was ancient times – pre NIL)
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLooking through the summertime goggles, I think we have a decent sized, very promising, five-man front court rotation. With Evans starting at center and (probably) Yalaho starting at forward, Jurkovic is a very capable backup at either position. Hall backing up at center and Wilkins at forward or center might start slowly but will get better as the season progresses – I don’t think Keene gets any significant minutes in the front court.
So that puts Keene in the back court rotation, sharing time with the best player on our team.
What’s his value add for the Wolfpack?
Evan Miya recently analyzed how transfer players produced compared to the season prior to their transfer. In a very high percentage of cases, players performed about the same or a little poorer on their new teams. It was the outlier that significantly improved. ‘Wolfpack RJ’ is probably going to look very similar to good old ‘Bronco RJ’ next season. But that means he’s still the BPICBTDS.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSize – A 6’7” 212 lb guard is a serious matchup problem for opponents every game.
Defense – Defense is what got him on the team. Stacy says he can guard the 2-4, one of those guard positions will have to score for most teams to win. It’s a tremendous advantage if RJ can slow one down.
Rebounding – He has averaged 4.5+ rebounds the last two seasons. He may not hit that average because he’s unlikely to play 18-20 minutes a game like he did, but he is a hard-working rebounder.
Passing – Tre Holloman was third on the ‘25-‘26 Wolfpack in assists with 67, Keene had 59 last season but played fewer minutes, so his assists per minute were actually slightly higher than Holloman. But Keene’s low usage resulted in an assist / TO ratio of a highly impressive 3.7. Holloman was on the ball quite a bit, so his assist / TO was a boring 1.8.
What’s his workload?
That’s the hard question. Keene looks like a quality, experienced, player, but there are so many talented, high-quality shooters on the team, who do you sit to make time for a guy unlikely to be a consistent scoring threat? His logical slot is behind McNeil at wing, but McNeil couples high quality with being a high-volume shooter too. If he’s sitting, he’s not scoring. Do you sub him at shooting guard at times? Hammond is nearly as good a 3PT shooter as McNeil and at a decent volume, and his overall FG% is better. Maybe a little of both?
The “MORE RJ!” argument is obviously going to be that his defense, rebounding, and passing are indirectly worth points, and no sane basketball fan (or writer) would argue with that. We are also going to hear the, “every good team needs a glue guy / someone to do the little things” argument, and that is said often enough on TV that it must be true.
It’s too soon to predict, but I think his minutes will depend on two things that we’ll learn quickly once the season starts:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHow successful has Coach Gainey been at teaching defense? From this (summer) vantage point, Keene projects to be one of the best defenders on the team. When the lights come on, will Keene be ‘another good defender’ that will come off the bench and maintain the quality of defense? Or will he be the guy that improves the overall quality of the defense when on the floor because he’s the designated ‘shut down’ defender? In other words, is the value of his defense worth the tradeoff on offense? (last season, the answer was definitely YES!) To earn minutes, he will have to differentiate himself on defense.
How well has Coach Brooks got his bigs rebounding? If the front court isn’t getting it done, Keene can definitely add value there. He’s got size, he’s a smart player, and he will fight for rebounds and loose balls. In the back court, Coach Gainey likes guards that rebound. McNeil (3.6 rpg), Hammond (3.0 rpg), Edmead (3.5 rpg), and Adams (3.4 rpg) are all good rebounding guards. As a back court sub, Keene is more likely to maintain the quality of rebounding than improve it.
However this plays out, RJ Keene is an outstanding tool in the toolbox. He won’t start and Adams and Jurkovic/Yalaho will be first two off the bench. He’ll be in the 8-9-10 rotation spots with Hall and Wilkins. He’s going to play some every game, and there might be games in which he is such a match-up problem on defense that he plays a lot. RJ has a huge personality and is going to be a fan favorite this season. He had a very funny podcast at BSU, expect to see him online here in Raleigh. He’s going to be fun!