Kevin Keatts’ Postgame Press Conference After William & Mary: TRANSCRIPT

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack’s 84-61 win over William & Mary tonight. The transcript is below.

Very, very happy for our team. I want to talk about the five games that we’ve had at home. I’ve seen tremendous growth in these guys every game.

On any given night, it can be someone else. We talk about who’s the energy guy, who’s gonna be the energy guy in the building. I thought Ben (Middlebrooks) came off the bench and did a great job.

And I thought Marcus (Hill) was good again. You know what, we’re going through a learning process. I thought we played great in the first half, and we were a little slow in the second half, start of the second half.

That’s where a new team’s got to learn how to continue to play the way we do. But boy, did we finish the game the right way. So it was good to see some guys play well.

I love what we’re building with this group. I love the versatility of this group. We just have to continue to get better.

Coach, talk about that resilience at the end, the last six minutes of the game. It seems like every time this team gets punched, they punch back.

I just don’t like getting punched.

We have a certain mentality about us. It’s natural, you get a big lead early in the season with a bunch of new guys. Everybody’s thinking about, ‘I’m gonna go for 30,’ everybody on the roster.

We learned a valuable lesson just to stay the course and play together. We had about a six or seven minute stretch where I just didn’t like who we were. I wanted them to play through some adversity, even when they cut the lead a little bit because I knew that our guys would be able to respond.

We’re doing a great job. This team’s coming in averaging 84 points a game. The last time we played, they had 102.

They’re averaging 12 three point makes a game, because they stretch it out so much. They run a pressing offense, and it’s hard in two days to teach guys not to get back cut. I thought we did a really good job with that.

So we’re also growing in scoring points and everything else. I like the team, I really do. This is a good win.

William and Mary’s in the conference that I came from, and they’re going to be good. First year coach is doing a really good job with them.

How would you assess your three point defense? Not only tonight, but just through these first five games.

I mean, listen, you know I won’t argue about everything with our guys.

We’re holding teams to 22% from three. It’s not a lot I can say. I mean, for you guys who don’t do a lot of math, that’s two or three out of ten.

We have played some teams who could really shoot the basketball. I just think we’re locked in. We’re concentrated on it. We talk about the shooters and making sure shooters don’t get good looks.

How important is that when your three point offense is still trying to click?

It was good for us to see the ball go in the hole tonight too. We’re still doing a great job. It’s one of those things everybody’s like, ‘man, you ain’t really shooting a three well.’

And I’m saying we’re getting 46 points in the paint. Maybe we shouldn’t shoot the three well.

I think what’s happening is our depth. It’s hard to be able to make shots at the end of the game because we’re wearing you out. You look at tonight, we forced 21 turnovers.

Colgate and William & Mary do a great job of taking care of the ball. We did a good job of turning them over.

You have a team that has so many scores. From a coaching perspective, does that make it hard to scout against what you guys are doing right now?

I hope so. I hope everybody that’s watching us is like, ‘Man, it’s hard to scout. Who do we concentrate on?’

I mean, I try to tell you guys that JT’s (Jayden Taylor) going to have a high hand now. Marcus (Hill) seems to have the hot hand a little bit. Then maybe somebody else will, but I hope so, because I don’t think we’ve just got that one guy that you can key in on. I think you’ve got to look at everybody.

You guys have Purdue next week. Not that you play bad teams, but the level’s going to step up. Do you think you guys are ready for that?

Well, we’ll find out, right? It’s a good Purdue team.

Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to watch any of Purdue, but I know Matt (Painter) does a great job with his program. It’s a rematch of the Final Four.

How sweet is that? To have the opportunity to play against a team that you played in the Final Four. The only thing about the game, there’s no Zach Edey and there’s no DJ Burns. So you’ll find out about a bunch of new people.

Dennis Parker Jr. has come on in the last three weeks. It seems like he started to really find a rhythm tonight. How impactful do you think he can be this season?

All of our guys have got to get healthy, and Dennis is one of those guys. I want Dennis to play more minutes, but he’s got to get healthy. He turned both ankles.

He can really help us when he gets healthy. I didn’t play Ish (Diouf) tonight because he’s just coming off of that. Two days ago, he couldn’t even shoot.

I’ve got to find a way to get him in the game. Trey Parker was out, but because we were playing against another team, I needed another point guard in.

When you’ve got nine to ten guys that you can play, it might not be your night. Dennis is certainly going to be able to help us. He’s a guy who went through it last year.

He’s had some really bad luck with his ankles, and we’ve just got to get him healthy and obviously we need him to play down the stretch.

Defensively, what makes you guys so good at forcing turnovers?

Well, I think the biggest thing is we’re active, because we emphasize deflections and everything else.

It’s hard to play against us for 40 minutes the way we’re in your face. I think our guys are doing a good job really executing the defensive game plan.

Right now we’re wearing teams down. I think we were in better shape even at the end of this game. I felt like we got stronger the last five minutes of the game.

We did the same thing when we won nine straight games too. I just think we’re in good shape.

All five wins have come at home. First road game test coming up. What do you hope to learn on the road, because it’s a first for this team?

Well, hopefully the tournament will let us wear our home jerseys and we’ll just tell them we’re at home in San Diego.

No, it’s a great tournament. It’s why I wanted to be in the tournament. The games that we had, we wanted to step up as we went along.

Our non-conference schedule gets really tough. The teams that we’ve played are dangerous enough to beat you. I look around at some of the scores of the teams that we’ve played against and they’re meeting some good people.

That being said, we look at the next game. The next game’s Purdue. I’ll start probably three in the morning, start looking at Purdue, trying to figure out how to scout for those guys.

But it does get tougher, but obviously, that’s why we schedule them to have that opportunity.

KJ (Keatts) scored his first college points. What was that moment like for you?

It was great.

I don’t know what he was doing. He came to a jump stop, and then he got an up and under, and he made a great play. I was happy for KJ. I threw a little water on him.

I didn’t know how quick he was until he was running when that water was being tossed on him, but I’m happy for him. He works. Him, Jordan Snell, those guys really work hard behind the scenes and prepare us, just like a lot of freshmen do. Just to see the ball go in for him, I’m very happy for him.

How do you handle the traveling and Thanksgiving and keeping the team together next week?

We just lock in. I think we’re going to take off tomorrow, probably practice on Sunday, probably take off on Monday and then go practice Tuesday here and then try to get out of here. We’ve got to obviously get out there and try to get adjusted to West Coast and then practice out there on Wednesday.

We’ve just got to lock in. We’re a new group of family. I just want these guys to think about Thanksgiving. The opportunity that we’ve got to play on Thanksgiving Day.

How do you guys handle creating your own energy? I’m sure there’ll be some Wolfpack fans there, but it also might be an arena full of maybe 2,000 people or something.

I think when you go to a destination tournament, you’re probably not going to have a bunch of people, so we have to create our own opportunity. Hopefully, Purdue won’t have much too. We’ve got to stay together as a team. We’ve got to create great energy as a team and obviously try to create great situations for us.