Kevin Keatts’ Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Loss to SMU: TRANSCRIPT

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack’s 57-63 loss to SMU this afternoon. The Transcript is below.

We did some really good things tonight. I think it was the most turnovers we’ve forced in an ACC game, and maybe even the most steals that we had this entire year. When you look at it, we got 64 shot. They had 52.

We had 15 points on the free throw line. We got 16 points from fast breaks that led to 31 points. Here’s the key to the game, we’re not shooting the ball well at all.

Either way, we had some really good looks. For whatever reason, we’re not making those. Our guys are fighting their butts off defensively.

Defense is really keeping us in every game that we have. Obviously, when you hold a team to 63 points, you have a chance to win. The unfortunate thing is we scored 57.

Offensively, we’re not making shots. We got some great looks. The message to the guys is keep on fighting.

Don’t let your defense suffer. Eventually, as we keep working and putting the work in, we think our offense will catch up with our defense as far as making shots. If that happens, then we’re gonna be okay.

We’ve got to figure out how to score the basketball. And like I said, I thought we had some great looks.

Does confidence get shaken a little bit? Because historically, you have a roster of guys that are mid 30s, three-point shooters. But 4-23 is not what you would want.

You get a little tighter when you start missing shots. Then I start thinking that you’re pressing. It’s so much pressure on our defense to perform.

It’s hard because you’re playing so hard on the defensive end, then obviously, offensively, you’re a little bit wore down, and you’re not able to make shots.

Like I said, I thought we had some great looks. I did. I’ve got a couple guys, one for five, one for six, one for five, one for three, and I thought they all had great looks.

What are your thoughts with Hill playing at Point Guard? They went on a run when he was. Is that something that you can do more in the future?

Because we’re not making shots, we wanted to try to put our best defensive team in there at one point. I thought that was a very good defensive team that we had on the floor, that was able to get stops. We wanted a little bit more size, and it was a combination that played well together.

So that’s something that we’ll continue to look at.

In the last seven and a half minutes of the first half, you took 11 jumpers, and one shot from the interior, and during that time, SMU went on an 18-4 run. Was that a deliberate shot selection on your part, or is that just how it fell?

No, it’s not so much that, we don’t have, Brandon (Huntley-Hatfield) and Ben (Middlebrooks) are not traditional back to the basket guys. I mean, they would much rather face you up. As a matter of fact, the baskets that they scored were face up jump shots.

So not deliberate, and we’re not alone in that. A majority of college basketball doesn’t have back to the basket guys. Most of the post guys are pick and pop guys.

So that’s not deliberate, it’s just those were the shots that we got.

It felt like y’all, during that stretch, y’all were settling a little bit because of their zone. Do you agree, disagree?

No, I disagree.

I thought we had some good shots. In the zone, we got the ball in the middle. I thought we had wide open shots that we had in the middle. I thought Dontrez (Styles) had 3 or 4 shots in the middle.

We swung it around, we screened the zone. I thought we got some shots.

I don’t think we settled. I think if you go back and look at the game, you’re going to be like, ‘Man, they got some really good looks’, and I thought we did.

I thought throughout the game, we may have forced two or three shots. But more than likely, most of the time, I thought we took really good shots.

It felt like a big part of the turnaround was Paul (McNeil) and the energy that he brought. What did you see from him, and what did you see this past week?

Yeah, I thought not only Paul, that group that was in there, I thought they had great energy.

But Paul had a great week. He hadn’t had a ”here we come week.’ He had a great week.

We were able to slow things down. I think all three of the freshmen, we were working extra with them to try to bring them up to speed, but he really shot the ball very well this week.

We wanted to give him an opportunity. I thought his energy was great. I thought he played hard, and I thought he did some really good things.

So we hope this is a launching pad for him to continue to get better.

These 4 losses have all been close. So you’re kind of walking the tightrope here. On one hand, you’re on a bad streak, but at the same time, you’re not miles away from winning any of those games. How do you handle that? And you’ve got a short turnaround, obviously, with Duke. But how do you handle that moving forward in terms of saying, ‘Hey, there are positives we can build on, but we just have to find a way forward?

Yeah, that’s what I talked about.

We’re defending, so you gotta pull that part out of it. We’re really  making things tough on teams.

We talked about, ‘Hey, don’t let your defense suffer, because your offense is not playing well.’ So now, obviously, we’ve got to look at the positive. There are negatives.

The negative is you lose the game. The positives are you’re getting everything that you want out of your defense. You’ve got to stay the course and understand, everybody in the program is frustrated, but the great thing about it is the frustration is not because we’re not playing hard. That’s a different issue. Our issue is that we’re not scoring the basketball enough, not enough points to win these games.

You guys have covered ACC basketball for a long time. There’s a magical number that you get to win an ACC game, and we ain’t winning many at 57.

I don’t know, I remember last year, I think we won one game at 57, and then maybe at Notre Dame, and that was somehow a double overtime game.

So you take that and you look at it and say, ‘Hey, we are right there.’

If we can figure out how to get over the hump and score some shots and make some shots, then we’re there. It’s tough, because we’re putting a lot of pressure on our defense, and our defense is standing up, but on the other hand, we’re not making enough shots.

How tough is this quick turnaround, and also adding the fact that you’ve got Duke on Monday?

They’re all tough. If you won the game or lose the game, it’s going to be a quick turnaround. The turnaround becomes even tougher when they’re on the road.

It’s a tough turnaround.

Being a clip away from winning these games, what’s missing?

I just think we have to see the ball going in the hole. You think about our season, we’ve had some games where we made ten threes.

We’ve had some games where we made one, and then somewhere between. So we’ve got to make shots. In college basketball, you have to be able to make shots, and we’re just not making shots. I love our guys, and they’re working their asses off. There’s not just one person that I’m going to say, ‘Hey, I wish he was shooting it better.’

I just wish we were shooting it better as a group.

You dressed up today.

I just wanted something different.

I wore polos for two years, and I woke up saying I wanted to wear something different.

You guys are entering a six-game stretch starting today against Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams. What’s your message to the team entering the next stretch?

We’re about the next game.

We can’t afford to look, I learned this early in my career here at NC State. Don’t prepare your team for the next six games, you’ve got to prepare them for the next game. We came into this game prepared for SMU, and obviously we’ll turn the page tomorrow, and we’ve got to prepare for Duke.

They don’t know what’s going on at six o’clock tonight, opposed to me saying six games down the road. We’re going to lock into the next opponent.