Kevin Keatts Talks to the Media Before Season Opener vs. Georgia Tech: BULLETED

NC State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media today before the Wolfpack’s season opener against Georgia Tech tomorrow night at 8:30pm on the ACC Network. You can watch the video here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

Injuries…

• Little banged up
  • Will make a game-time decision on a couple guys.
    • Won’t say who.
• Hoping that a couple guys will be ready to play at 8:30 tomorrow night.
  • Good chance we’ll have a couple of guys out.
• Right now, I don’t know we’ll have as many bodies as I expected going into the season opener.
• Disappointing, but injuries are a part of the game.

D.J. Funderburk…

• We’ve allowed D.J. to be back in practice.
• Practiced for a few days now.
• He will not play tomorrow. He will not dress.
• Don’t have a timeline for Funderburk’s return.
• He’s starting to move towards the things that I’ve asked him to do, and that’s why we allowed him to come back in to practice.

Manny Bates role with D.J. out…

• We’ve got to depend a lot on Manny Bates, & that’s a good thing for us, because he’s been able to play in the scrimmage and our exhibition game. Got those practice reps. He’s played well for us.
• Manny allows us to gamble a little bit.
  • Allows us to get into a passing lane.
  • Allows us to make a few mistakes on the perimeter because of his shot-blocking ability.
  • He can clean up a lot of our mistakes.
• He’s going to be a really good player.
  • Unfortunate thing is that he still needs a little more game experience to be a great player.

Opening Season with ACC Opponent…

• These games are exciting.
• Excited for our league that we have the opportunity to play against an ACC team.
• That being said, it’s still early. I think it’s early for everybody.
• I would be disappointed if we were the only team playing an ACC opponent, but we’re not.
  • It’s the entire league outside of Duke, and Duke’s playing Kansas.
• Great opportunity to showcase our league on opening night. Excited about that part of it.
• But when you come in off of Summer, have a suspension, have injuries entering into a game and don’t have the luxury of just bringing guys along, because right there you have an ACC game to start the season.

GT loss last year

• I’ve watched tape.
• Quite frankly, we didn’t make shots.
  • Braxton was 0-8 from 3, and C.J. Bryce 0-4.
• We’ve got to make shots.

What he expects to take away from game…