Kevin Keatts’ Weekly Press Conference Before Cal and Stanford: TRANSCRIPT

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media today on Zoom for his weekly press conference before the Wolfpack head out West to play Cal and Stanford this week. You can read the transcript below.

I know it’s not the position you want to be in, but when you’re thinking about fighting for a spot in the ACC tournament, how important is that to your guys? Do you ever talk about it? And maybe more importantly, do you ever hear them referencing it?

We haven’t to this point. Obviously you’re halfway through the ACC and we didn’t have a great first 10, and we got to figure out obviously how to play better and win some of those games that we didn’t win. I don’t know if anybody had as many close losses as we’ve had in conference in a long time, but we haven’t.

We haven’t got to that point. I’m trying to keep these guys right in the moment, and in the moment, we got to just figure out how to finish games and take one game at a time, but it’s not time for that yet. My group is not prepared to hear me talk about 10 games down the road.

I just got to lock them into what’s next, which is Cal.

For the big picture for you, how important is it that NC State, that your program is part of that event every year?

Well, it’s important. We don’t make the tournament last year, we’re not ACC champions, and we don’t go to the Final Four, so it’s important.

Going to California this week, what does the schedule kind of look like for you guys throughout the week?

We’re going to get out this evening, around 5-something, and get in there late, close to 10 o’clock. We’ll practice here first, and then get down in Cal and practice tomorrow, try to do a couple team things, and then we play on Wednesday. Then we have to prepare and get ready for the next couple of days to play on Saturday, so we’re there all the way until pretty much a red-eye late Saturday after the game and coming back, so it’s a pretty long week for us, a long week of travel, playing two good teams on the West Coast that have done really well at their home venues.

How do you manage the team kind of, sickness going through the team, kind of manage that with, the long flight and the travel that comes with it?

We’re not healthy right now, so that’s a great question.

We’re taking a five-and-a-half-hour trip with guys who are under the weather, but we’ll manage it. It’s part of the game. It’s part of what every program has to go through, and we should try to manage it the best we can, and hopefully everybody in the next couple of days will start feeling a little bit better.

When you have the transfer portal and players can leave anytime now and all those different things, does it change your mentality in terms of trying to develop freshmen and young players? Do you have to focus on that maybe as much as you did in the past, or is it simply you’re trying to win the very next game?

Well, when there was no transfer portal and guys had to sit out if they left, you knew that you could obviously try to develop players. You knew that they were going to come back. At the end of the year, I think every coach goes through this because of the portal.

There are going to be guys that you feel like that you want to have back and guys who want to be back and guys who want to leave. I think in this era, you have to try to play the best guys at the time and how they’re playing at the time, meaning you got to get your best players playing the best basketball. We didn’t have a great first 10, so back in the day, the argument would be, ‘hey, do you just play freshmen and develop them?’ But there’s no sign that they’re going to be on this roster or any roster, you know, how that goes with any coach.

And so I think, in today’s time, you just try to figure out, who’s playing the best basketball, who puts NC State in the best situation to win games.

With the transfer portal and conference realignment, obviously, we’re already seeing guys playing their former teams. I know Cal is first, but you will be going to Stanford. Michael (O’Connell) came from there. Is that something that y’all have talked about at all heading into this week?

We haven’t yet because our games have come so close together, playing Saturday, then playing Duke on Monday, then turning around and playing again. We haven’t. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Michael about going back and play. When we when we get in practice today, the one thing we’ll talk about is Cal, because this is our second time playing.

This is the first team that we have played our second time, but I’ll have a little time. I got a long flight with him. So I have a chance to talk to him a little bit about his time in Stanford and getting the opportunity to play.

But up until this point, I have not.

We’ve asked about it throughout the season, but I wanted to ask you kind of a follow up on where Mike James is now at this point. Do you expect to have him at any point this season? Where do things stand with him now at this point with the injury?

He’s actually moved a little bit forward. He’s been doing individual workouts. We’ve done some one-on-one things with him.

I’ve put him in a couple drills with some contact. I just don’t don’t know where he’s at. I would say to you, it’s getting to the point where probably in the next week or so we’ll have a decision about whether it even makes sense for him to play this year or to sit out.

I will say this for everybody’s listening. I know Mike is a little frustrated that it hasn’t gotten to where it needs to be for him to be back on the court. He really wants to play.

Hopefully he takes a positive turn and there could be a chance that he plays this year. I’m not going to rule that out yet, but I think the conversation will be had within about a week or so.

This upcoming week, you’re going to play against Cal and against Stanford. Stanford, a team that Maxime Raynaud has been one of the better players in the ACC so far this season, not only at his position, but just overall. How difficult is it to match up with him, given his size and given the way that he can stretch the floor as well?

Well, I haven’t focused on them, but I’ve seen some games through some teams that we’ve been playing. God, he’s tough.

I did say something to Michael. I mean, he’s like, ‘man, he’s gotten so much better over the years.’ When he first got there as a freshman, we talked about that he wasn’t very productive, but he’s a tough matchup.

I mean, he shoots the three. He’s a little bit different because when you watch him, very rarely do you see people use screen for post guys and he’s comfortable coming off of that. He’s as tough of a matchup as we’re probably going to face all year. I’m thinking about the bigs that we played and we played some really good bigs over the last couple of years, but I don’t know that we played anybody with his size that is as skilled, maybe Quentin Post a little bit, but he probably handles the ball a little bit more than that. He’s a talented player.

Did you have a conversation at all in the off season or on the recruiting trail with the new coaches. 

No, I didn’t have a conversation with them, but when I realized after the game that we were going to take the trip to Cal and Stanford, I realized now that they are. Obviously I’m excited that they’re in the ACC, but reality sunk in that our conference has spread out so much, which is a good thing. I don’t think that’s an issue at all. I love the fact that we cover so much ground in different places, but it is sinking in now that we’re actually going to Cal and Stanford to play a game, whereas maybe the only time I went to California to play games, it was part of an MTE, but we’re going to two good places, two good schools and two good programs.

The last two games haven’t gone the way the previous 12 went for Marcus (Hill). What have you kind of seen from him and his kind of growth from the time he showed up on campus till now? He’s kind of become one of those more consistent players that you’ve been looking for.

He’s a competitor. When you leave the Duke game, you wish he’d have played better because he was 1 for 10.

It really bothers him that he didn’t play a great basketball game, but it’s hard to not remember the 8, 9, 10 games leading up to it. He had been our most consistent player.

I don’t worry about him because he’s going to get back in the gym and completely work on his game and get better and figure it out, and we’ll figure it out together, but I like the way he’s gotten better throughout the year. I think at one point he was trying to figure out ‘how do I score against a more athletic guy’ than he played in his last conference? I think he’s figured that out.

He’ll get back to playing. Dontrez Styles has really played great the last couple games and we can get Marcus and JT (Jayden Taylor) playing that gives us a second and third guy who can really score the basketball, but Marcus will be fine, just because he works at it.