Kevin Keatts Talks To Media Before GT: BULLETED

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts talked to the media today before the Wolfpack’s matchup against Georgia Tech tomorrow night. You can watch it in full here, but here it is in BULLETED form.

On Georgia Tech:

• Georgia Tech has played a lot of people tough.
• Josh Okogie might be about as good of a combination Guard/Forward we’ve seen all year (18 ppg). TJ Jackson is also very good.
• Tough game on the road especially with their style of play. Started to figure things out now since their PG has been out. Pressure style defense, switching off screens.

On NC State:

• We do a lot of full court shooting in practice. Wants players to be able to shoot at the end of the game. Thinks it’s a mistake to do a lot of half court shooting. Also one of the only teams in the country still doing individual work. Bring in individual players twice a week for 10-15 minutes to work on shots.
•  Taking good shots right now.
• Said before, a good shooting team is a good passing team. Finding open shooters and not forcing shots like we did earlier.
• Excited for the guys. 20 wins and 10 in conference. But if you were to come to practice you wouldn’t see much patting players on the back. There’s still a lot of work to be done.
• Omer Yurtseven gives a dimension most teams in the country don’t have. They don’t have a Center that can pick and pop from three, and from 15 and make shots. He’s playing really good basketball this time of year. Don’t talk percentages with him because don’t want him taking too many. When you take too many your percentage goes down.
• Thinks it’s great Abu gets to play in the postseason. Didn’t get a chance to last year. Real big for Abu and Freeman, and the two grad transfers, Freeman and Hunt.
• Abu and Freeman have been the best. Both have really sacrificed a little bit of their game for the team. Been great leaders even when they haven played a lot of minutes. Abu has been the biggest cheerleader we have. They see the opportunity.