Keatts: ACC-HBCU Matchups 'Unlikely This Year'
NC State basketball coach Kevin Keatts is still optimistic that a series of basketball games between ACC teams and Historically Black College and Universities opponents to commemorate Martin Luther King Day will eventually happen.
It just might not happen this season.
"We’ve talked about it as the ACC," Keatts said earlier this week during a guest spot on the ACC Network's Packer and Durham show. "I do think that it is a possibility that it will happen in the future. I don’t know that it will happen this year.
"When you look at most colleges, including the ACC, most of us are finished with our schedule. Nobody knows how the pandemic will affect things. When it gets into January, we may have to play all conference games."
The idea of playing games against HBCU opponents on Jan. 18, 2021, presumably on the road, was first brought up by an unnamed ACC coach last week. It was designed to call attention to the nationwide debate over racial inequality and remind people of the meaning behind the MLK Day observance.
Notre Dame has already announced that it will play at Howard on Jan. 18. It is not known how many other schools -- State included -- will be able to follow suit.
The only nonconference games on the Wolfpack's 2020-21 schedule reported thus far are against Radford on Dec. 12, 2020, American University on an unspecified date and in the Empire Classic at New York's Madison Square Garden along with Villanova, Michigan and Baylor on Nov. 19-20.
Even if the logistics can't be arranged for all 15 of the ACC's teams to play at HBCUs on Jan. 18, the mere consideration of the concept has already been a positive in Keatts' opinion.
"What it did, by opening that discussion about playing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day," he said, "(is) it opened that discussion about being able to talk about other things that we can do as a conference to bring awareness and make sure that we can get rid of some of the racism in America."
Keatts added that it's important for the ACC's coaches, especially him as an African-American, to keep talking out on the subject.
"I think that it’s important if you have a voice and you’re not speaking out, I think that’s a problem right now," Keatts said. "Seven to 10 to 15 years ago, to talk about racism was a tough topic. I think that it’s important now that those who have some power and guys who have a platform to be able to speak out against racism."
