VIDEO: Kevin Keatts Press Conference After NC State Beat USC Upstate 98-71

NC State waxed USC Upstate 98-71 this afternoon, improving to 11-1 on the year. Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media afterwards for his postgame press conference. The video is ABOVE, and a bulleted breakdown is BELOW.

• I thought our guys competed. The five guys I didn’t start, obviously played tremendous today. This is why we’re called a team. I know a lot of you guys will say ‘Oh, your starters didn’t play well.’ I put together a roster with 10 guys who I feel comfortable playing. The guys that came off the bench were tremendous. Those guys scored 62 points off the bench.
• Excited about the program. If you told me that we’d be 11-1 going into Christmas break, I’d have taken it ten times out of ten. I’m happy, and I’m going to take a few days off and enjoy my family.
• It wasn’t a message (taking out the starters). I thought the other guys were playing better. Those guys who started the game…they’re starting for a reason. They’ve carried us the majority of these games, but I thought the other five guys played better. It was hard to keep the them off the floor.
• Give Eric Lockett credit. Crazy coach myself, I didn’t even play the guy last game. He came in and he played well. Didn’t pout. Had a couple of good days of practice. Went 3-3 from behind the arc. He’s a veteran guy. He’s played a lot of games. He’s a graduate. Working on his master’s degree right now. He understands. When you look at tonight, I thought he was one of the guys responsible for our win.
• Same thing with Blake, Jericole and DJ. It wasn’t a message I wanted to send. I’ve got to put the best matchup out there for us.
•  I’ve tried to create a culture where it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. We all get the credit.
• I don’t know if I’m getting older or not, I don’t yell a lot. I used to. So I didn’t yell, honestly (at halftime). We just talked about it. I looked at how everybody was playing at halftime, and I said I’m going to start the other guys at the beginning of the second half because they played so well.
• They compete. Very seldom do you find a program where you’ve got 10 guys that will compete every possession. I know some of the guys didn’t play well, but they competed. What I’m proud of about these guys is every practice…every game…every timeout…every 4-minute segment…I can honestly say they give me tremendous effort every time. That’s what I love about the bunch. We don’t do everything right. Sometimes we get a little careless with the ball. Things don’t work out all the time. But we do a great job of competing all the time, and that’s all I can ask for.

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