Italy Update: Highlights from NC State’s 100-64 win

NC State started off their Italy trip with a bang as they crushed Varese All-Stars 100-64.

The Keatts era is now underway with the first game under their belt, and fans should be excited. Everything you’d hope to see in a Keatts-led NC State team, you saw. Fast pace, dunks, sharing the basketball, working hard on defense, steals, deflections and more steals.

NC State finished the game with 20 steals and 57 deflections.

Al Freeman led the Pack with 17 points.

Here is Keatts’ comments after the game:

“I thought we played hard. Though, we didn’t do everything correct, I thought our effort was great. Obviously, when you play your first game, you certainly are going to have some things you need to work on, but I thought our guys played extremely hard. We shared the basketball and I thought we got out in transition.”

“We chart deflections and we had 28 at the half and our goal is 40 for the game. I thought we were very active. I think there are some things we need to work on defensively, but I thought we moved forward today.”

“We’re trying to get these guys to play as hard as they can for a short amount of time and then put their hand up in the air and let someone else come in and play hard. I was very happy with the first game. We’ll go back and watch a little tape and try to figure out some things we need to work on before we play again Monday.”