Kevin Keatts Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Win Over Rider: TRANSCRIPT

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media after the Wolfpack defeated Rider 89-63 in the Lenovo Center this afternoon. He met with the media for his postgame press conference after the game. You can read the transcript BELOW.

You never know how you’re going to end up playing after having a week off. Certainly we worked on a lot of things and we took two days off after the Kansas game. We got in there on Tuesday and Wednesday and really worked on NC State.

We took Thursday off and then we turned our attention to Rider on Friday and Saturday. What we want to do is clean up things. I didn’t think in the Kansas game we played together enough.

I thought we had moments. I didn’t think we got off to a good start, obviously, being down 15-0. Tonight we did, and the second half we did. I thought we grew in a lot of ways. When you look at it, what I think this team has to do, I don’t know that we’re going to have 21 assists on 29 main field goals all the time, but we have to play off each other. I thought we really did a good job tonight moving the basketball and playing off each other. Defensively we got back into the right places.

Sometimes a week really helps you. Sometimes you can be a little bit rusty, but I thought our week was well spent.

Coach, Marcus Hill talked about where he’s improved the most since he’s arrived here. He said the game doesn’t get sped up as much. He had a really good night tonight with just one turnover and six assists. Can you just talk about his growth in that department?

Yeah, he’s growing. The next stage is feeling confident making those shots behind the three point line. I think the biggest thing with Marcus is he thought for this team he had to score, score, score. With his ability to get paint touches, I think he had six assists tonight.

You’re always rewarded when you make the right play, and I think that’s where his growth is. All of those guys, we’re trying this week to define certain roles. ‘Hey, make a good pass, but if somebody else has got a better pass, they’ve got a great shot.’

So make sure we pass the ball, and I think that’s where he’s grown.

You said you weren’t worried about Michael (O’Connell) the last four games. He was able to put it back together today. What would you like to see from him?

He and I just sat down and I just said, ‘Just play. Just have fun. Like, this is your last year. You can start counting down the games and start worrying about everything.’

He never said this, but you don’t have to carry the load because the team won the ACC tournament and went to the Final Four last year. You’ve just got to play. He’s such a great kid.

So I don’t know if that’s what he was thinking, but just go play and have fun. And certainly he looked like the Michael that we’ve all grown to love. He did some really good things tonight.

It was a little dramatic in the first half with a flagrant and a technical. Have you ever coached in a game where both those types of fouls are called in one half?

Oh, I’m sure I have. I’ve been in a bunch of games. I’ve been in some games where a bunch of people have gotten thrown out of the game.

So, yeah, I’m sure I have. One of them was a hard foul at the other end and then Ben (Middlebrooks) was playing defense and the guy whacked him pretty good. That happens.

Do you often see players be a little more energized when they go home to family? Do you often see players get a little energized when they return after seeing family?

My message to these guys is give back. Like, I want them to be energized.

I’m going to give gifts for Christmas and I’m going to receive some nice gifts, but at the end of the day, what I told my players, there are people at home that are praying for you. There are people at home that really, really love you.

If you have a chance to go spend 5, 10, 15 minutes with those folks and put a smile on their face, that’s what it’s about. Going home, eating home cooking, and seeing family, I think that’s good because I think at some point everyone needs a break.

So in the three or four days that our guys will be home, I hope they get a chance to spend a lot of time with their family and make somebody smile.

Y’all created separation early in the game. How big was that? Was it a point of emphasis?

We wanted to establish ourselves defensively.

I’ve talked about this. Sometimes you can come out flat, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve got to give up baskets because you’re not scoring, and we really emphasize that. The one thing that we did this week that we’ve done different is we played a bunch of small games.

We played a bunch of four-minute games, putting them in situations where you’re up 10, down 10, we wanted to, instead of drills, I think sometimes as coaches we can over-drill, and in drills you know where you’re supposed to be, but when you’re playing a game, the guys are in different places, and I thought it paid off for us, and we were better, and I thought we got better in some areas.

Do you like to divide the season into parts, and do you feel like this part is now finished with the non-conference slate? Now you know what you need to do for the remaining parts of the season.

I look at it as non-conference is over now. Back in the day, you wouldn’t have played an ACC game so far. Now that we have 20 games, you have played one early.

Now your focus for the rest of the season are all ACC games. We got off to a great start being 1-0, taking care of home, and now obviously we got 19 more of those games.

How do you navigate this week off so that you will be ready for Virginia?

When we get back, that day when you get back, it’s a throwaway day.

Our guys are going to get back in the gym late on the 26th, and I’m going to try to get them in some type of shape. But I will say this, we’ve got a bunch of guys that it’s hard to keep them out of the gym, so they’re going to probably find some way to work out. We’ll get back the 26th, practice 27th, maybe take a day or two off somewhere in there and get ready for the game.

But we got to divide it up, you don’t want to lose everything that you put into it. But at the same token, it’s very important, and I’m one of the coaches that our guys need to go home and spend some time with family.

What are some of the key things you’ve learned about this team throughout the non-conference cycle?

Well, I think the biggest thing is that we need each other.

We don’t have the DJ Horne that can go off for 20 points every game. We don’t have Terquavion Smith or Jarkel Joiner. This group needs each other to be good, and that’s okay because when you’ve got a bunch of guys, look at our stat sheet now, when you’ve got a bunch of guys getting 10, 11, 12 points a game, sometimes that’s the hardest team to guard because you don’t know who to focus on.

But the one thing I’ve learned is that when we play together, we can be really good, and we really need each other.

You talked earlier in the season about how you wanted to play fast. This team is still relatively low in terms of tempo, possessions per game. Are you kind of leaning into what you’re seeing right now, or do you still want to see them play faster?

Well, I think when we play fast, we’re really good. I don’t know where we are in the country in fast breaks, but at one point, we were number one and number two in the country, so we are playing fast.

I think the segment when we didn’t play fast was when we were giving up offensive rebounds where we couldn’t get out and run.

When you look at our wins, most of our wins, we’ve done a good job of running. The losses, I thought we gave up too many rebounds, so we couldn’t get out and run.

What does the ACC schedule look like for you when you consider the conference as a whole to get off to a good start on conference?

It’s still tough.

It doesn’t change that you’ve got to go to great venues. It doesn’t change who you’re playing. It doesn’t change anything that we get a chance to play against one another.

We did not have a great November, December. That being said, it doesn’t change that we’ve got really good teams that we’ve got to play at their venues. It’s crazy because everybody defines so much about how good a team is, about what number they are in the NET.

It still doesn’t change that you’ve got to go to their place and play their really good basketball team. As we always do, we’ll take one game at a time. We’ll concentrate on when we get back on Virginia, and then we’ll move from there.

Going off that, is it going to be weird not seeing Tony Bennett on the other end?

Yeah, it is. I mean, Tony’s been there forever. I remember when I was at UNCW, I played him in a tournament.

So it will be a little weird not seeing him, but they’ll have their own identity, and it is what it is.