NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for his preseason press conference last week. Here’s the key takeaways from what he had to say.

Point Guard Position

• It’s a lot of competition.
  • You got Michael O’Connell, who has played a lot of basketball at Power Five [Stanford Transfer] that can play the point.
  • With D.J. Horne [Arizona St. Transfer], he’s in the same situation, but he’s been more of a combo guard his whole life.
    • It’s always great to get a young man to come back home [he played at Trinity Christian in Raleigh].
    • He’s here, he’s been positive, and he’s been great.
    • He’s older…a great older guy to have in the locker room, let alone his ability to score the basketball.
    • He will put you a little bit in the mindset of Terquavion and Jarkel, because he’s a really offensive-minded player.
  • Then, you’ve got 2 guys who completely had to play against Jarkel Joiner and Terquavion Smith in Breon Pass and L.J. Thomas.
• We’ve got a lot of options. I don’t know who we will go with ultimately at the end.

Power Forward Position

• Power forward, we’ve got a lot of options.
• We could play big.
  • We could go back to when we had D.J. Funderburk and Manny Bates playing, because I love what Mohamed Diarra [Missouri Transfer] is bringing.
• I love what Ben Middlebrooks [Clemson Transfer] brings, and then you’ve got Dennis Parker [Freshman], and then you’ll have the opportunity to play M.J. Rice [Kansas Transfer] at some of those positions also.

Depth

• We have possibly 10 guys that we can put in the game.
• I won’t make hockey substitutions where we go five in and five out, but I do think for the first time in a long time, we have 2 point guards, 2 shooting guards, 2 small forwards, 2 power forwards, and 2 centers.
  • Then we’ve got a lot of interchangeable parts that can play different positions.

D.J. Burns

• He’s going to be mayor of this city one day. He is. He is what he is.
• I’m going to have the best back-to-the-basket post guy.
• He’s tough. He’s lefty. He can score it in different ways.
• You don’t get any assists off of him because he’ll catch it and dribble 4 or 5 times to be able to score the basketball.

D.J. in Foul Trouble

• Because his hands are so good, he reaches a lot.
  • Even on ball screens, he’s always thinking he can pick somebody.
  • What we’ve said is, “Hey, man, you can’t do that. You’ve got to wall off. You’ve got to do a good job. You can’t reach. You’ve got to stay in the game. You have to do your work early on the defensive end.
  • A lot of his fouls don’t come off the guy he’s guarding.
    • It’s our guards getting blown by, and he’s reaching and not rolling up or jumping when he’s in a restricted area.
    • Part of that, as we’ve talked about, our guards have to guard the basketball…and then, D.J., when they do come in, you can’t give up stupid fouls.

D.J. Getting Fouled

• I think he gets clobbered. He plays through it.
• The biggest conversation that we’ve had [with officials], is that when he catches the ball almost close to the 3-point line, you shouldn’t be able to have a closed elbow.
  • When he starts there, technically, he’s a perimeter player that time.
  • Once he gets close to the block is when you can use your elbow.

D.J.’s Passing

True Freshman Dennis Parker Jr. 

• What makes Dennis Parker really, really unique is that he plays hard.
  • One thing I’ve always said is that the hardest-playing team typically gives us the best chance to win, and when you look at Dennis, he won’t put you in the mindset of a Freshman.
• He runs the floor. He’s athletic. He can play multiple positions. He can guard more than one position.
• I’m really excited about him as a Freshman.
• He’s going to play some Small Forward for us. Also when we play small ball, I think he can play that ‘Torin Dorn role’, being able to play some 4 for us.

Kam Woods Availability to Play [North Carolina A&T Transfer]

• Well, we had those conversations up front. We talked about the opportunities here.
  • “We would have to file a waiver for you to be eligible under the current situation, but if the waiver doesn’t go through, then, if you’re going to come to NC State, you’ll have to accept the fact that you’re going to have to sit out a year, like it used to be.”
  • He was completely fine with that.
  • I tried to set the expectation where it was and make sure that we both understood this as what it could be.
• We should be filing a waiver for him soon, and we’ll live with whatever the results are.
• He’s good. You don’t average 17 points in Division I, no matter what level, unless you can really score the basketball.
  • He’s gotten a lot stronger. He’s shooting the ball a little bit more consistently at this level.
  • He would be a great addition to our roster.
  • Once again, I’ll go back and say it…I don’t know if he’s going to be eligible or not, but if he is, I think he could help us.

Mohamed Diarra

• He’s been our most complete player from the summer until now. He’s been really good.
• He’s talented. He rebounds the basketball. He can step out and shoot it.
• He handles the ball on a break.
  • He thinks he’s a point guard. I know he’s not, but he thinks he is.
• He’s been really good. I’ve been impressed with him.
• His work ethic has completely changed since he got here.
  • He wasn’t into it as much, but now he’s found some success through practice.
  • He’s kind of taken off to another level.
• He’ll play some 4 and 5 for us.
  • He won’t play Small Forward, like he may think, but he’ll help us out a lot.

Ben Middlebrooks

• We talked about the opportunity to play.
  • We don’t have a starting Power Forward.
  • There’s opportunities to play minutes at the 5. There’s opportunity to play minutes at the 4.
  • There’s opportunities to play.
• Ben just wanted a different role. He was stuck behind a really good basketball player in P.J. Hall, and he wanted the opportunity to play some Power Forward, and that’s why he’s here.

Best on-the-ball defender

• “I like Jayden Taylor.
• Last year I said that Casey Morsell would be on the all-defensive team.
  • Casey didn’t listen to me enough.
  • He’s a really good defensive player.
• I would say Jayden or Casey could play that role more than anything. More so Jayden than Casey.