NC State’s Kevin Keatts Talks Before Season Opener: BULLETED

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts spoke with the media today before the men’s basketball team kicks off the 2018-19 season tomorrow night against Mount Saint Mary’s. You can watch it here, or read a BULLETED breakdown below.

• Excited for some of our players. I’m sure there will be a lot of nervous energy. Was thinking about it today…we’ve got 3 guys, really 2, CJ Bryce and Devon Daniels, who haven’t played in over a year.
• Tried to improve on some things that we didn’t do well in the Chowan exhibition. Our guys are obviously tired of practicing against each other. They’re all excited about playing basketball tomorrow.
• We’ll play a very good team that’s got a lot of tradition, Mount St. Mary’s. Last few years they’ve done a tremendous job and they play a very similar style to us where they try to get up and down.
• I’m looking for chemistry and I’m looking for a lot of different lineups.
• From exhibition, I wanted us to do a better job of blocking out. I thought we gave up a few more offensive rebounds that I would like. That being said, when you give up offensive rebounds, you don’t get a chance to get out and run as much. I know we scored 111 points, but I want to try to get out in transition a little bit more.
• In recruiting, I think you have to, #1, obviously sell your program and your system. Obviously we’ve got a tremendous program that I think that fans obviously love and players love to play in. You talk about a great university and we certainly have that…academically and also a great place to go to school in Raleigh.
• Braxton Beverly is doing better. We actually threw him into one or two drills to try to shoot the basketball. He’s still a ways away and I don’t know that I have a timetable for you guys. I don’t know where he’s at. In my mind, I wish he could play tomorrow, but I’m looking at probably two or three weeks out… hopefully. I’m going to listen to the doctors and trainer to tell me when he can play, and I hope it’s sooner than later. We need him. We love his leadership. I know he’s obviously a good player and can make shots, but I think we miss the leadership more than anything.
• The two guys who played for me last year have to do a great job shooting: Torin Dorn and Markell Johnson. CJ Bryce has also played for me for a couple of years and Devon Daniels I would like to see play well. I think those four guys have to play well and I think everybody else has to follow.
• Wyatt Walker is free spirited, a high-energy guy.  Everybody loves him, and I think his leadership and how hard he plays… everybody could follow that.
• I told our team the other day, what we did last year was a very special year, especially with some guys who were coming off a year that they didn’t have a lot of success. We don’t take it for granted that we won 11 games in the ACC. It’s hard to do on any given year.That being said, that’s a totally different team and I’m excited about this group.
• I would say yes, this is more my style of team. We have the pieces to play the way we want to play, but I don’t want to cheat last year’s team. Those guys bought into my system and we actually played our style. What I said earlier was that we probably had about 75 percent of our system in and hopefully now we’ll get up to 90 to 95 percent now.
• I think the three bigs that I played in the exhibition game, help me sleep a little better knowing that they can contribute in different ways. When you look at Wyatt, he did a tremendous job rebounding the ball, and he’s a great passer. You can’t ignore the way DJ played. DJ did a tremendous job going 7-for-7 from the field.
• In college basketball, if you can stay older or in this situation you can stay experienced, I think that’s better. We have some older guys but what we don’t have is game experience, so having him (Torin Dorn) as a guy who’s been through the wars and obviously played in the system… is huge for us because his leadership is going to be important for guys that have never really went through a season of NC State basketball.
• I know we want to be an uptempo team and we want to get out and transition, but unfortunately the other team has scouting reports. We know we’ve worked really hard trying to be efficient in the half court and we expect to see early on, especially with Braxton out, a good dose of some zone sometime and then some man-to-man. So we’ve worked on trying to be better in the halfcourt.
• No, I just want him (CJ Bryce) to play.  If he can average 17 points a game at this level, then I’m great with them. I try to create an atmosphere where our guys can play loose. I give them tremendous offensive freedom without getting crazy. I hope he just plays the way he plays.