Kevin Keatts Presser after win over #10 UNC : BULLETED

NC State knocked off their rival, #10 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels, 95-91 in overtime. Kevin Keatts met with the media to discuss the victory. Above is the full press conference and below is a summary of what he had to say (in bulleted form)…

• Give UNC credit. Unbelievable game.Played a great team with great tradition on their home court. Credit to our guys. Fought until the end. Whoever got stops at the end was going to win. Our guys dd.
• Great effort from Markell Johnson. Outstanding. 20 points and 11 assists. Al Freeman shot it well going 7-7 from 3.
• Great culture win. Great team win.
• Markell is great player. Happy with 15 assists and no points. Love that, but need him, on this particular team, to score the ball also.
• Keatts teams are better at the end because they are in better shape than everyone else. Carolina was in shape but team conditioning kicked in at the end of the game.
• Guys are learning how to fight. Talked in the locker room about regardless of what happens we are getting off rest of the day, tomorrow and Monday. Give 40 minutes of best effort in this game. Didn’t know it would be an OT game.
• Team is realizing if they play together and stay together they can be successful.
• Not worried about individual teams in the league, more worried about being in the race. Stay the course, focus on next opponent.
• Lineup is game to game. Figures out lineups in the flow of the game but also how guys play in practice. Abu will be fine, Lennard will be fine. Carolina just spreads you out. Putting Theo Pinson at the 4 is a tough matchup for post guys.
• Usually team gets ice cream wherever they win, but going back to Raleigh to get it so they can celebrate with the fans and give business to the locals.
• Media doesn’t believe it, but this team is better shooting than they’ve shown in some games. Getting guys in right spots is key. A good passing team is a good shooting team. Guys get open, get feet set and they shoot it well.
• Proud of beating Duke and Carolina but also proud of the other 3 league wins.
• Markell’s return helped everyone. Pressure is off Al Freeman and Beverly because they don’t have to handle it as much.
• This is not the same team that lost by 50 some last year and this is not the same Carolina team. Every game is a different game in this league.
• Important to give guys tremendous offensive confidence. Tell them to shoot it when they feel it. All that’s asked is that they defend. You don’t have to do everything right, but you have to play hard and team is starting to believe in that.
• Playing well late in games is (IMO) conditioning. Some may say otherwise. But its the ability to stay focused and execute. Having back to back road wins is unbelievable.
• Team is heading to bell tower.
• Coming into the game, UNC is good in 3 areas. Transition, shooting and rebounding. Wanted to take 2 of the 3 of those away and thought that if we could we could win.
• Markell is so dangerous when he’s aggressive on the pick and roll. Today he was aggressive.
• Theo played great. Luke Maye played great. They have a great team.
• Got back from Pitt at 2:30am. Thursday was jsut a film day. Yesterday practice was an hour and half. Team looked confident in practice.