Kevin Keatt’s Press Conference After NC State’s OT Win Over #16 Miami: BULLETED

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack beat #16 Miami today. You can watch it here, or check out a bulleted breakdown below.

• Great team win. Gritty win. It’s one of those wins that you’ll look back and say, “Man, that was a great win.” It’s a great, middle-of-January, ACC battle.
• Give Miami credit.
  • There was a moment in the game where I thought Isaiah Wong just took the game over.
    • He had a stretch where we just couldn’t guard him.
• I have to shout out Ernest Ross, another guy who’s been on our bench for a long time and came out and had 17 points and 9 rebounds.
• This team keeps putting together good games, and it’s always someone else who’s stepping up.
  • When we put the team together for the 1st time, we thought we had 10 guys who could play.
  • Being down Dusan Mahorcic and Jack Clark, the other 8 guys are stepping up in a big way.
• I don’t know if you’ve congratulated Jarkel Joiner, but he’s a daddy now.
  • I don’t know if I should be telling you that, but there’s a “Jarkel Jr.” who was born yesterday.
  • We didn’t know if he was going to make the game today.
  • He got back at midnight last night and played the game.
  • He was able to be there for the birth of his child and was able to make it back.
  • He played with a heavy heart as a proud new daddy.
• Our team has taken on the identity of defense and grit.
  • When you look at the stat sheet, they shot almost 50 percent for the game, maybe more, but I thought we made big plays and big stops when we needed to.
• What’s special about this team is that every game that we get a win, I’m able to point at someone who made a difference in the game.
  • DJ Burns came in the game, 13 points, a career high in assists with 7.
  • I didn’t expect to play him that early in the 2nd half.
  • I wanted to get to that 1st timeout because I didn’t want him to play 33 minutes, but we struggled to score, and so he came in and made a big difference for us.
• I think we’ve all learned. You know what’s happened with Manny Bates and Devon Daniels.
  • One of the biggest things, as a staff, is also we’ve prepared guys for taking advantage of opportunities.
  • Greg Gantt was a guy who was a punching bag for a lot of people, having never played.
    • Obviously, he’s played a lot of minutes.
  • Ernest Ross was a guy who didn’t like his minutes, but he had a great week of practice.
  • LJ Thomas has played better, and Breon Pass is starting to get better.
  • We’ve started to develop our bench because we know we’re going to need those guys down the stretch.
• I absolutely believed it [Ross could have a performance like this]. I knew it.
  • Ernest was great. He’s around the rim all the time. He’s been flying around.
• I’ve said this before…I don’t think there’s another back-to-the-basket guy in the country as unique as him [Burns].
  • Here’s why I say that. He’s got an ability to score; he’s got a great touch around the basket.
    • But he’s also a great passer. He’s a willing passer.
  • When he’s in the game, we try to go to him as much as possible because we don’t know how long he’ll be in the game.
  • He’s unique, and we love the way he can score the ball.
  • This is something we haven’t had in the last year or so.
    • We’ve had to draw up a play to get a jump shot or some kind of drive. Now, we can throw it inside and score off of that.