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

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media tonight after the Wolfpack’s 66-65 win over Notre Dame in the Lenovo Center. You can read the transcript BELOW.

I want to thank everybody who came out tonight. I thought when we got going a little bit, our crowd got involved, especially at the end. We talked over the last couple of days about being better defensively. We didn’t feel like at Wake Forest or Virginia, we put any game pressure on them with our defense.

I told them, I said, “hey, I’m not worried about offense right now. If you defend like we’re capable of, the offense will go,” and then certainly it happened.

I thought JT (Jayden Taylor) was really good down the stretch, did a good job, hit some big shots for us. I thought we completely locked in. We didn’t have as many scouting report breakdowns.

That’s the one thing we’ve been talking about. Our ball screen defense hasn’t been very good, and I thought we locked in and we really did a good job with that part of it.

So, proud of our guys.

ACC wins, you guys know how hard they are. It seems like every time, Notre Dame is a 1-point game somewhere, but we were excited to get out of there with the win and something that we can build on.

What’s going through your mind after that final buzzer, you guys get the stop and win there?

Well, what was going through my mind is he better not make this shot. He better not make this shot. I thought we did a really good job.

Ben (Middlebrooks) stayed with him for about four seconds, then we exited out. The one thing we didn’t want to do is give Markus Burton his right hand. We knew if he got to his right hand, he could get all the way to the rim.

We knew who the ball was going to go to, and I thought JT did a good job, and then obviously, we got our hands on the ball to get a rebound.

Responding with a win tonight after what went down in Wake Forest, what does that speak to the team’s resiliency?

Well, we’ve got competitors in that locker room. We didn’t like the way we played. I mean, we really didn’t.

We’re going to have ups and downs. We completely know that. Not only us, everybody in our league and everybody in the country.

It’s, can you bounce back and get better? We looked at the schedule. We knew we had a really good Notre Dame team coming in, especially when Burton returned. Obviously, he had 23 points out his first time back.

But we didn’t like the way we played, especially on the defensive end, and we wanted to get better.

What was the message at halftime going in with a 7-point deficit?

Just continue to play.

We talked about the things that we did to give them the lead. We had a couple breakdowns. We let Tae Davis get to his right hand.

We had a couple 50-50 balls that we did not get. And I was like, ‘that’s the difference in the game.’ We talked about that and how can we clean it up.

But what was important to us is that we came out in the second half and played really well. This particular team hadn’t had a great second half, and we were able to put one together tonight.

That 2nd half at UVA, you guys said you lost focus. What was the difference today?

Well, we talked about it, you’ve got to stay locked in. One thing that we talked about is that if you’re tired, take yourself out of the game. Don’t be selfish. Let somebody else have the opportunity.

Ben misses those two layups late in the second half. He was really good the rest of the way. Making key free throws. What’s that say about him that he put that play behind him?

Well, we need Ben on the floor. You can always say woulda, coulda, shoulda. If we have Ben at UVA, there’s an opportunity that we win the game.

Obviously he comes back for the Wake Forest game, and anybody who watched the game knew he was completely not Ben Middlebrooks. Today he was.

I was mad at him at halftime, because I thought he was out of position and got those two fouls called on him. But he’s our energy guy. He does all of that dirty work.

With him in the game, we’re a different basketball team, especially defensively.

They mentioned building confidence with a win like this. Would you agree? Not the fact that you won this game, but the way you all came back in the second half, how does that feel for you?

Yeah, I mean, it’s early.

2-2 sounds a lot better than 1-3.

You’ve got to take care of your home and continue to grow. It’s going to be a long season. We still will have a lot of opportunities in the ACC.

I was watching games last night and I was like, ‘man, this league, there’s going to be some great opportunities for some great wins.’ But you’ve got to compete every night, and I thought getting away with a good win tonight, it was a good start for us.

Speaking of Ben, how has he grown since he first got here last season?

He’s gotten better. You want to talk about a guy who left Clemson and was more in a backup role playing behind PJ Hall, who was a really good basketball player, to a guy now who’s starting and playing big basketball at NC State and playing with a lot of confidence. So it’s good just to see him grow over the last couple of years.

What does Saturday’s game mean to you and your program moving forward?

It’s another game that we’ve got to be ready for. I mean, we have to be ready for it.

We’ll go back in the next couple of days and see where we can clean up from this game. What I’m worried about more with us is how do we get better? Our focus going into Notre Dame was about NC State opposed to Notre Dame. So we’re going to do some of the same things. Then obviously we’ll turn our focus to Carolina.

Dontrez Styles making plays…

I don’t know, but I was glad to see him hit that huge three. Almost the same spot he hit the three against Florida State. I mean, he raised up and made a big three.

He’s growing. He’s just getting comfortable in a new system. I hate to say this, but it’s the world that we’re in. This is his third system.

He’s had to learn the system and understand where his shots can come from and how he can compete and how he can play. I thought he was really big for us today.

Speaking of Dontrez Styles, will you have to have a special message to him going into this UNC game to keep his emotions in check against his former team?

No, he came from Georgetown.

We’re not playing Georgetown, are we? Right. No, I mean, obviously, I’m sure he wants to play well against his old team. We all do.

Which players have you seen the biggest improvements in this season?

I think I can start with the older guys, but I’ll start with Marcus Hill. I thought this was his best game, where he didn’t force shots, he made the right play, he had great assists.

I think Dontrez has grown. Of course, Ben has grown.

Then, obviously, JT had a moment in the game where he really brought us back and he put us on his back a little bit. So I think all of those guys have gotten a little better, and we’re going to continue to grow. We’ve got some guys that are going to continue to feel comfortable in our system.

Ishmael Diouf…

Yeah, Ish is coming along. He’s going to be able to help us. I’ve just got to figure out, it’s better when other teams have a bigger lineup and I can stick him in as kind of a four or five.

We’re going to need him as the season continues.