Meet Eemili Yalaho and RJ Keene

Justin Gainey continues to surprise with his first portal class. As a successful defensive coordinator who thrived off long, athletic rosters, Gainey’s early scores have actually leaned hard toward the offensive end. This is a trend that stayed true with the recent addition of Washington State transfer Eemeli Yalaho. 

I appreciate the importance that Gainey has placed on spacing. State could stand to get bigger from a year ago, but it shouldn’t overcorrect there to the point where it sacrifices spacing. Targets like this and Taylor Bol Bowen make it clear that it doesn’t plan to. Yalaho is a good shooter. That’s his best trait. 

His most obvious fit on offense is as a floor spacer and a pick-and-pop big. He shot over 40% from three last season on 127 shots. Having shooting in the top four spots of your on-court lineup unlocks a lot of three-man ball screen actions that would be easier to defend otherwise. This is noteworthy, because I personally think there are a lot of these types of actions that are really strong fits for Preston Edmead. In that sense, Yalaho is an activator. 

Pick and pop is his best action. He's a quality shooter.

He can handle the ball some too, which makes him valuable as a dribble handoff initiator. These kinds of traits work together to enable and strengthen flow within the progressions of an offensive possession. For example, Yalaho can pick and pop out of a ball screen, and if there’s no shot for him off the catch, he can flow right into a handoff action for a secondary creator.

That’s most of his offensive contribution, to be honest. He really struggled out of the post in the games I was able to watch. He lacks twitch and quickness and doesn’t create good angles with his footwork, and he’s generally sloppy with the ball, which led to a very high turnover rate for a low usage big. In fact, in 2026, he attempted 63 total shots at the rim and posted 58 turnovers. I watched him in the Cougars’ home matchup against Gonzaga, and he had five post-up possessions that did not end in a pass. Four resulted in turnovers and one resulted in a miss. Gonzaga in particular seemed to give him hell. In the two matchups against the Bulldogs, Yalaho recorded one made field goal and nine turnovers.

Yalaho is notably a solid passer out of the post. Early on in that Gonzaga game, he saw a few doubles and functioned as a distributor in those situations. It’s tough to use that, though, when teams feel comfortable not doubling or just stunting at the ball.

Defensively, I think there is something left to be desired. Yalaho doesn’t display great range as a help defender, which really makes him a non-factor as any kind of rotational shot blocker. I have concerns about him guarding on the perimeter against smaller guards. At 230 pounds, he has the beef to bang around in the paint, but I can see teams targeting him off the dribble in a switch situation or if he’s playing the four, which you should assume is the intent.

Eastern Washington has the side emptied out coming out of transition. Yalaho is set defensively but still cleanly loses off the bounce.

NC State has also added a very different type of player to fill a theoretically similar role as Yalaho. Meet RJ Keene, who comes to Raleigh after three years spent at Boise State. There, he earned solid minute share off the bench, played good defense, but only attempted 168 career shots. 

Keene has one of the strangest player profiles you’ll see in the portal this year. He averages over 22 minutes per game, and he played 20 or more minutes in 20 of 29 games last year. Despite that, he’s established almost no offensive profile. Keene took a total of 73 shots last year, almost as many as his first two years combined, and six free throws. His career high is eight, and you’ll never guess which team it came against. 

His likely ceiling as an offensive player is as a tenable floor spacer and a decent connector piece within the offense. He does average almost two assists per game, which is noteworthy given his comically low usage. He is passive offensively but he is not a stagnator,, which may or may not be a real word. If someone else starts the blender, Keene will make good decisions as the outlet. He’s also a good improvisational screener. He was never involved in very many actual actions, and State will probably never run a play for him, but he’s active off the ball setting random pin and hammer screens out of the corner when the ball draws help. 

The drive draws the attention of both weakside defenders here, so Keene immediately improvises a pin down for 13. The ball handler kind of fumbles the ball to Keene instead of the corner, and Keene gets it where it needed to go so quickly that I had to watch this twice to figure out what happened.

Where Keene’s impact is felt is on defense. He’s not necessarily an elite on-ball defender, but he is a “nosy” defensive player. He has a good feel for what is happening around him, and he tends to be right where he needs to be. I watched him against Wyoming and he was good at showing early help on the ball and also not letting back cuts get behind him. 

This is a good possession from Keene, who is number 5 and starting the clip guarding the ball. He calls the switch on the screen and does a good job keeping contact with the roll while seeing the ball, which allows him to help on the drive. He then closes out the corner well.

Keene doesn't have big shot blocking numbers because that's not his role, but he gets some opportunistic blocks in help situations. He's long, and you can see the length win above in the transition block he got against Wyoming.

Boise State’s defense was 16 points better per 100 possessions with him on the floor vs. off it, which is a hysterical number (per Evan Miya). I wouldn't expect that level of impact to occur in Raleigh, as those numbers will likely come back to earth some. He will be a plus defensive player, though. If he decides to make threes at a higher volume this year, then you've got a reliable 3&D wing here.