VIDEO: Kevin Keatts’ Presser after NC State Beat Maine 82-63

Head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media in his postgame press conference after NC State’s 82-63 victory over Maine yesterday. The video is ABOVE and a billeted breakdown is BELOW.

• Controlled the tempo in the first half. They did a great job of
  moving the ball around, burying the clock in the second half, and limiting our possessions.
• This is a very good game for us because we want to try and get out and run as much as we can. Playing in the ACC, teams will try and get you more into a half-court game. I think we can take this tape and learn from it. I give these guys credit. This group of men has never played against a pressured offense. When you’re a pressure team and you deny passing lanes, you get back cut a few times. Overall, I think it will be a good learning experience for us. We will be able to chop the tape up and show what we need to get better at.
• I’m excited. Never take a win for granted. Extremely happy that we are 4-0 right now.
• I don’t look ahead. I only prepare for the appointments ahead of us. We have a new group of guys. When you think about it as I said before, we have only three guys that wore NC State uniforms and some of these things have helped us. All of the games will help us. As the schedule goes on, I think we will see some tougher competition, but I’ve liked the teams that we have played and what we have gotten out of it. Playing Maine today with their style will really help us when we get into the ACC.
• Our zone offense was fine. We made more shots in the first half than we did in the second half behind the three-point line, but I thought it was fine. We got everything we wanted out of it. We missed some shots in the second half and we missed some open looks, but I was fine with it.
• The first three of the four games we have come out of the gate fast. We did some good things and we knew in the last couple of days that we were going to have some breakdowns. We knew that we were going to have some backdoor cuts on us based on the way we deny the passing lane. For the most part we handled it well even though we had some breakdowns.
• We’re probably going to have some type of walk-on trial. If you asked our guys, they wouldn’t want to add another guy. They like the fact they get the chance to play. I like the balance of our team right now. I don’t think anybody is playing over 25 minutes in the first four games. It’s worked out pretty well for us so far, but we probably will add a couple guys to the roster sooner or later. Sacha (Killeya-Jones. Sitting out this year after transferring from Kentucky) is the only guy that practices with us, and Manny (Bates) is out because of a shoulder injury.
• We had originally signed a really big group of freshmen and I didn’t want to have five or six freshmen. Tough to win with freshman. He was available and I’ve known Eric (Lockett) for quite a long time. With his versatility, he’s a guy in college last year who averaged about 14 points a game. He reminds me a lot of Torin Dorn. He can do a little bit of everything.
• C.J. Bryce is starting to fill the stat sheet in a similar way that he did in Wilmington.
• Devon Daniels is starting to play a little bit better, especially in the last game. Then you have Dorn and Lockett. We’ve got four or five guys that are all similar size that can do some different stuff.
• I like our intensity, but I thought we were flat a little bit at times. I give credit to Maine. Anytime we were in a situation where they were playing five out, they drove our post guys away from the basket and were able to reverse the ball.
• I like our effort. Our effort has been great. We just played with a different team that didn’t want to run with us. When you look at those guys, they didn’t want to push much in transition. They got in transition when they had it, but they just didn’t try to push it in transition.
• I’m excited about this game, probably more than the rest of them. When you get the chance to play in the ACC, you’ve got all different types of teams. We’ll face someone who plays similar basketball, not identical, but similar.