Kevin Keatts After NC State’s Victory Over Austin Peay: BULLETED

NC State Men’s Basketball Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media last night in his post game press conference, after the Wolfpack beat Austin Peay 99-50 in their season opener. You can watch the press conference here, or check out a BULLETED breakdown below.

• Great energy for opening night, our guys came out with a lot of passion.
• We set the tone on the defensive end.
• I know we’re going to talk about the fact that we scored 99 points.
• I’m proud that we were able to turn them over 20 times.
• I thought we did a great job of keeping them in front.
  • They have great size for a mid-major team.
  • They did a great job, especially on Elijah Hutchins Everett in the 2nd half. I’m proud of them.
• We played on both ends of the floor.
• We were able to make shots, share the ball and had 19 assists on 40 made field goals, 11 three-pointers.
• We were efficient from the free-throw line.
• We’ll take the game, we will continue to build on it and continue to get better.
• Terquavion Smith was fantastic tonight, he did a great job, very efficient, and made some really good plays. He played on both ends of the floor.
• I thought it was great [no scoring lulls].
  • That’s what we try to work on when you’ve got some older guys.
  • A guy like Jarkel Joiner, you can talk to him and he can lead our younger guys, which I thought was outstanding.
  • It was good that we didn’t have those two or three minutes where we didn’t score.
• We had fun at times [last year], but this is a good bunch.
  • They have bonded both on and off the court.
  • We will continue to be a work in progress. We will continue to get better.
• “I think that it was great [opening the season like they did].
  • This is the toughest game, in my opinion, in college…the 1st game of the year.
  • I don’t care who it is around the country, it’s still tough no matter who you’re playing against, because you just don’t know.
  • You want to get off to a good start, which we did.
  • I’ve been on the other side of it in the 1st game where we were able to squeak away with a win, but we didn’t play well.
  • I thought everything went as we planned tonight.
• They were great [big men DJ Burns and Dusan Mahorcic].
  • I usually tune the crowd out and get locked in, but when DJ made those first baskets, man, you could just hear everybody like, “Woah, here we go now.”
  • Those guys were tremendous. I consider both of those guys starters.
  • I think between the two of them we had 18 points and 14 rebounds. DJ Burns had 9 of them [rebounds].
  • They played well. We have two guys where we feel like we can throw the ball in there and score.
  • They both are getting better. Dusan’s a little better on the defensive end, but trust me, we’re working with DJ to get better in those areas. But I love that we can score some inside baskets.
  • What makes those 2 guys great is their competition in practice is unbelievable.
    • Half of the time they foul each other every day, but at the end of the day they really make each other better.
• DJ [Burns] is playing hard. I’m proud of him, because one of the knocks on him is that he couldn’t rebound the basketball, but he can score.
  • I think he did a good job defensively and rebounding the basketball.
• When you have a veteran guard [Jarkel Joiner] in college basketball it goes a long way.
  • We talked about what Jarkel did tonight, he had 18 [points] and 8 [assists] and only 2 turnovers as much as he had the basketball.
  • He really works so hard, he puts in so much work every day.
  • He’ll drag someone into the gym tomorrow. We’re off tomorrow, I don’t get to see him, but I can guarantee you Jarkel Joiner will be one of those guys probably in the gym with someone else working on his game.
  • To have a veteran guy who the player respects and plays hard on every possession. I’m proud of him.
• This is a confident bunch, we’re going to have a lot of success, and we’ll have some ups and downs, but at the end of the day, I think because they are veterans, we will save that moment for a long time.
  • I think those guys are able to fight through some adversity and everything else.
  • It’s good to have older guys.
• I think it’s a talented backcourt [Terquavion Smith & Jarkel Joiner].
  • These guys feed off each other.
  • I can move either one of them to the 1 and 2…we’re playing Terquavion a little bit more at the 1.
• Greg’s [Gantt] knee has been bothering him a little bit.
  • He got an injection in his knee, and we just decided to hold him out.
  • There’s nothing major with anything. He just got a shot, and it’s really aggravating him a little bit.
  • He got the shot on Saturday after the game, and it’s kind of been really sore for him.
  • I hope he’ll be back for the Campbell game.
    • That’s the plan, I’ll say, until I diagnose him on Wednesday. We’ll be off tomorrow, but that’s the plan.
• I want them to play with a lot of energy.
  • It’s great when your star player [Terquavion Smith] is playing with that type of emotion.
  • It’s great when the guys who are playing the most minutes are the most energetic guys on the sidelines, and that helps.
• We talk about winning the 4 minute segment and going to a timeout, “Let’s win the 4-minute segment.”
  • At halftime, when you have such a big lead, I think we were up 28, sometimes it’s hard to maintain and to play at a high level when you have a bigger lead.
  • We talked about, “Hey, play like a scrimmage. I want it to be zero-zero [in their minds]. Let’s figure out how we can win the half.”
  • I think the guys did a great job winning the 2nd half. I think we came out the first 2 or 3 minutes in the 2nd half and did some really good stuff. They scored a little bit, and then we locked in.