Kevin Keatt’s Press Conference Leading Up to Duke: BULLETED

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media today leading up to tomorrow’s matchup against #16 Duke in PNC Arena at 7pm on ACC Network. You can watch it here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

Duke

• They’ve got great size. They’re long. They’re athletic.
  • They can defend you. That’s the biggest concern going into it. They’ve got great size.
  • We’re not going to play against many teams whose front court has a 6’7″ small forward and 2 7-footers at the 4 and 5. It just doesn’t happen that way
• They do a good job.
• They’re playing a lot of people.
• They have great depth.
  • They have a 2-headed monster at the 5 position, and they can go 2-deep at every position.
• They’ve got veteran guys playing with the young guys.
  • On some given nights, the young guys are better because they’re young and don’t know what they’re not supposed to know, but thus far, the older guys have been carrying them a lot.
• It’s a good team.
• They can get out in transition.
• I think he [Jon Scheyer] runs a little bit more sets [than Coach K], but I haven’t played against him.
• It’s still the same talent, and that’s what makes the difference.
  • They have one of the most talented rosters in the country, and you’ll see a lot of those guys playing soon in the NBA.
• With some guys being out, they’ve been able to experiment with a lot of different lineups, and it’s actually worked for them.
  • It’s gotten a lot of guys a lot of experience in different situations.
  • We don’t know who’s going to start. We just know that, at some point, they’re going to play 9 or 10 guys.
• When you look at what he [Jaylen Blakes] did against Wake Forest, him making shots completely changes them.
  • It gives them 2 guards, obviously, Jeremy Roach has been around for a long time and done a great job, but when you add him beside him and the way he’s playing, it gives them another dimension.

Loss of Dusan Mahorcic

• We thought we had it figured out. We were fortunate enough to play 2 centers, 2 completely different guys.
  • Dusan was a guy who, I think, averaged 9 points and 7 rebounds, and we never ran a play for him.
  • He was a guy who would just run the floor, set great screens, rim run and get offensive rebounds.
  • Then we would bring DJ [Burns] in who was more of a half-court natural scorer.
  • Completely changed our team when he [Dusan] went out because DJ was playing about 18 minutes a game with Dusan at 22.
  • Then, we had to figure out how to adjust, and DJ ended up playing a lot more minutes than we would have liked.

DJ & Ebe Dowuona at Clemson 

• The biggest adjustment is that, even though DJ got into foul trouble at Clemson, it allowed Ebe Dowuona to have a chance to play a few more minutes.
• If we can get him [Ebe] playing 15-20 minutes and playing more of the Dusan Mahorcic role, I think that’ll help us.
• I need Ernest Ross, Ebe Dowuona, and those guys to step up and play the role of Dusan.
• We’re going to rely on Ebe, and he and I talked.
  • He started 27 games last year, and he got to the point where he just played hard.
  • We want to get him to play that role, and it’s hard to get that role in today’s time, because everybody’s thinking more about scoring the basketball.
  • When you look at Dusan, he’s a throwback. He’s an older guy. He doesn’t need the basketball to be successful.
  • If we can get a guy like Ebe to play that role, I think it’ll help our team.

Jack Clark

• I think what happened with Jack [Clark] is that we all, including myself, came into the season thinking he was going to shoot 40% from 3, and that’s unrealistic when you look at his career, the way he’s shot three-pointers, and his percentages.
• I would say he’s doing everything we want him to do.
  • He’s leading us in rebounding.
  • He’s getting out and getting steals.
  • He’s playing hard.
• We wish he was shooting it a little bit better, but I think that’ll come later on in the year.
• Right now, I’m getting everything that I need from him until his shots start going behind the three-point line.

Terquavion Smith

• You know I don’t doubt him.
• We’ve talked about what’s a good shot for him and what we need for the team.
• I don’t think he played well against Clemson, as we all know, and it was one of those games where, ‘I’m going to figure out how to play well.’
• For the most part, I think he’s had an incredible year.
  • His assist-to-turnover ratio is 2-to-1.
  • He’s really playing good basketball.
• I hope we can just remove that game where he went 5-for-21, but I think it was more who he was playing against opposed to him trying to be selfish.

Heading into Duke

• I think we’re in a good headspace. Our guys have worked the last couple of days. Obviously, these are ACC games. It’s a home opportunity.
• It’s a little different than when I coached 4 or 5 years ago. Every team has a Quad attached to them.
  • We used to always say, ‘If you go .500 in the ACC, it’s a lock to get into the tournament.’
  • Wake Forest won 13 games, and it didn’t happen.
  • Now, it’s about Quad opportunities.
  • We have a good Duke team coming in that’s a Quad 1 opportunity, and so our guys are looking forward to that and embracing the opportunity of playing an ACC team at home with a Quad 1 opportunity.
• I think we’re playing good basketball.
  • We were one of those teams that were fortunate enough to have 11 wins going into Christmas break, and there weren’t many teams in the country that way.
  • We’ve done some really good stuff, and now we’re concentrating on all conference games.
  • We’re locked into opponents that we know and opponents that know us pretty well.
  • I think we’re playing decent. We’re like every team. There are a lot of things we can improve on, but I’ve got to be honest…I’m really happy with our guys and where we’re at now.
  • I’d like to have a different ACC record, but it’s a long year.
  • We have 16 games left, and we’ve figured out how to get to 11 wins. We’ve just got to build on the ACC schedule.