If you did not know better, you wouldn’t think much has changed from the last season of the Mark Gottfried era to the first season of the Kevin Keatts era. NC State averaged about 70 possessions per 40 minutes last season, which ranked 71st, and it is averaging around 73/40 this year, which ranks 63rd. Relatively speaking, this is no change.
This is where average possession length (seconds per possession) comes in handy. When you take that into account, the difference is pretty clear.
A lot of coaches like to talk about playing up-tempo basketball, and technically, NC State was an up-tempo team last year.