Keatts, Freeman Talk to Press before UMKC :: Bulleted

NC State takes on the University of Missouri Kansas City at Reynolds Coliseum on Saturday at 2pm. Kevin Keatts talked to the media about the upcoming game. Here is the summary.

Kevin Keatts

• SC State’s Ty Solomon and his dad called Keatts to let him know everything is good and he’s been released from the hospital.
• Team took Sunday and Monday off to heal up. Keatts and team have worked on themselves the past few days and these next two days they will work on prepping for UMKC
• Abu is doing better. Knee is feeling better and he has started practicing again. Still unsure if he will play on Saturday.
• Abu’s knee soreness is normal and he should be fine. Sometimes for superior athletes who haven’t ever been injured like that, it’s more mental.
• Excited to play in Reynolds. Grew up seeing great games played there and glad they do one game a year there.
• Biggest takeaway from SC State was getting off to great start. Hadn’t really gotten off to good starts at home. Played well on both ends of the floor. Got out in transition.

Al Freeman

• Extra time off has been great. Been able to work on themselves. Fix some kinks and really compete in practice.
• Against grat teams, especially in ACC, the team has to get off to a good start. Can’t get down like they did to Penn State. Need to make sure they play a full 40 minutes with no mental lapses.
• Team is used to playing back to back with some fatigue, so guys aren’t used to this much time in between games.
• Tough practices had team ready for first 7 games.
• Omer and Lennard’s play make it easier on guards. In the future teams will double down, opening up shots for guards or rotations that will allow drives
• Losses were tough, but team focused on defense, getting into transition and controlling the pace. Last two games they have done that.
• Going to Bahamas was good to see how team matched up with top major teams.
• Wants to create chaos on the defensive end. Need to make point to point passes tough and get deflections.
• Excited for the atmosphere in Reynolds. Wished they had more games in Reynolds and maybe some ACC games.