Kevin Keatts’ Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Loss to UVA

Yesterday NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack lost at UVA. You can read the transcript BELOW.

Well, the first thing I’ll say is that’s another good UVA-NC State game. We’ve had the last couple of them go to overtime, here and then obviously in the ACC tournament, and this one came down to a three point game, completely different halves.

If you look at it, we played great, I thought in the first half, offensively and defensively. What I talked about with the team at halftime: we had 11 assists, we’d only given up 2 three pointers, we were moving the ball, we played well on both ends. We came out in the second half, I thought we played well enough the first two minutes offensively, and then I thought the ball stuck. One of the things I’ve talked about is when you play Virginia, because they do a great job at gap protection, it’s got to be more ball movement and player movement.

Didn’t get that. We only had 3 assists in the second half. We gave up 7 three pointers in the second half. That’s just not a good formula to win.

I’ve talked to these guys and we pre-started it as this group needs each other to play well together to be able to win. And when you look at the first half, man, we were really, really good. And I didn’t think we were very good in the second half.

What did change in terms of the three point defense in the second half? And what did they do to get McKneely some better looks?

Well, I just thought we lost them. I mean, we looked at it, our pressure was tremendous in the first half, like we really got after them. What happens is, because it’s a new bunch, we’ve got to figure out and learn how to play behind and with a lead.

I thought we relaxed. I thought we took a couple bad shots and had a couple bad turnovers that led to them getting some easy baskets. Obviously, once that happened, the crowd gets involved.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the building who was thinking, a missed free throw and now the ball’s in Michael O’Connell’s hands. What did you want, besides making the basket?

Well, I was hoping he could duplicate what he did in DC. No, we just tried to get a basket, we had no timeouts at that point. We tried to get a basket and try to get a screen into a down screen to get either JT or Breon, I don’t remember which one was in the game at that time, to get a look off.

With 15 seconds left or 10 seconds left, we didn’t necessarily wanna take a bad three. We wanted to just take a shot. We knew we’d had enough time that if we fouled, we’d get another shot off.

What’s the status of Ben Middlebrooks? 

I got an update early this morning, right before breakfast that he had been throwing up a good portion of the night. I didn’t know that. I also thought he may be available for the game, and we put him through warm ups.

If you know Ben, if he can play, he can play. He ended up throwing up again before the game. At that point, we made the decision that he wasn’t going to be able to give us anything. He lost a lot of fluids.

Don’t know if it’s something he ate, don’t know if it’s a stomach virus. Something we’ve got to figure out. It completely changes us. Obviously, he’s had a great year so far.

He’s the leading shot blocker in the league. He’s our toughness guy. That being said, I thought Brandonn(Huntley-Hatfield) and Ish (Diouf) did a good job in the first half with his absence, but as the game went along, we completely missed him.

Coach, you were first in the ACC in turnover margin coming in to today. It was kind of flip-flop. First half, it seemed like you really took care of the ball, and you didn’t commit your first turnover until about seven minutes ago. Second half, you seemed out of rhythm. What changed in that besides the ball simply sticking?

Well, I think it was mentality. What happens is, we’re playing well together, and you look out there, and some of your better guys may not be scoring the basketball. So now it’s like, ‘hey, I got a 12 to 14 point lead, let me go score,’ and that’s the wrong formula against this team.

I didn’t think we moved the ball as much. I didn’t think we drove the ball as much. I thought we settled a lot of it.

A lot of our turnovers came from our interior play, which was weird, because they didn’t trap us like they normally do. So when you look at it, Brandon had four turnovers, which is not really characteristic of him, then everybody kind of had one or two, and it ends up being 11.

Were you at least pleased with the execution in your late game situation?

Yeah, I thought JT had a great look at the basket. I mean, I couldn’t have drawn up anything better to get him to get a two foot jump shot right at the basket, and he missed.

When we decided to call a timeout, we did a good job, and Marcus (Hill) executed. We were going to bring Breon (Pass) off a stagger screen, and I told Marcus, we’ll take two or three, if you can get to the rack, get to the rack. And we did a good job, and then we executed our defense.

We knew a held possession would be our ball. We had a pin in the corner, and we couldn’t quite get the tie up, and so that was the tough part of it.

Kevin, with Middlebrook’s not available today, would you have used two bigs at the same time, given that Saunders had such a mismatch inside?

Absolutely, and we had prepared all week at times to be able to play Ben and Brandon together, and it’s weird when you lose a guy right before the game, it’s hard to adjust.

Like if you got three or four days and you know he’s out, all of a sudden, you think about your starting center, you’re going into the game, he’s been practicing really well. And then all of a sudden, you get a phone call that he’s probably not gonna be able to go. First of all, I feel bad for Ben, because there’s not another guy who wants to play more than him.

Obviously, it changes our team. I thought we did enough in the first half where it didn’t show up, but in the second half, as the game went along, you could tell we needed his body.

What did they do well with Elijah Saunders in the post, especially earlier in the second half, and just what did you make of his game?

Yeah, we thought that they would throw the ball to Elijah.

They did the same thing in the first half, we just didn’t pressure the ball enough. There were direct passes while we wanted to front the post. We knew that they had a size advantage.

In the first half, our pressure was so effective that they couldn’t make those passes. And in the second half, we lost our pressure a little bit.