Kevin Keatts Postgame Press Conference After NC State Fell at Wake Forest 71-67

NC State continued their historic struggles at Joel Coliseum last night, losing to Wake Forest 71-67 on the road. Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts spoke with  the media after the game in his postgame press conference. The video is ABOVE (via PackPride’s YouTube Channel) and a bulleted breakdown is BELOW.

• Give Wake Forest a lot of credit. Played a very good game. Played inspired. Played like a team that obviously wanted to win the game.
• We did a tremendous job, considering the hole we dug ourselves in before the half, and we cut it obviously and tied the game up, but we made some mistakes down the stretch where we didn’t do a good job of finishing.
• I thought we took some ill advised shots and didn’t put ourselves in the best situation to win. But give those guys (Wake Forest) all the credit, I thought they played inspired basketball on the home floor.
• We played on the back of our heels in the 1st half. We didn’t make shots. We’re obviously a young team in terms of playing together, and our defense tends to struggle a little bit when the ball is not going in the hole, and we clearly didn’t shoot the ball well before the half.
• I’m not going to take away from Wake Forest’s performance because we didn’t have Markell Johnson. We put ourselves in the situation to have the opportunity to win the game, and we didn’t execute down the stretch.
• Some individual guys at times took some shots once we got back in the game that hurt us. When we got back in the game, we shared the basketball. We had some guys make some shots. We fed off each other. Once we tied it up, I thought a couple of guys played hero basketball.
• Our intent isn’t to get behind, but I know my team is going to fight. At the end of the day we can’t continue to dig holes and get behind. We have to do a better job as a staff getting ready to play when we come out of the locker room.
• He’s an older guy (Torry Johnson) and we knew he could play. Similar to Eric Lockett, those guys can come in the game because they’ve been through it before and be able to play. He did a good job and made plays down the stretch. If I had to give an MVP, and that’s Danny’s choice, I thought he’d be their MVP.
• I didn’t feel comfortable. Coaches decision (On not playing Blake Harris much (3 minutes) in the absence of Markell Johnson)
• We’re used to that. We’ve seen that (1-2-2 Zone). Miami played it, and we played against it the entire game against Pitt. We just didn’t make shots. There’s no reason behind it. We had some open looks, they just didn’t go down for us.

(Video Credit: PackPride’s YouTube Channel)