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

Head Coach Kevin Keatts met with the media today for his postgame press conference after NC State’s 70-62 win over Boston College. The transcript is BELOW.

I thought we got back to what we have been doing the entire year on the defensive end. You look at the Louisville game, we were not happy with the defense that we played. Credit to our guys for understanding that. The best thing that we’ve had going for us the entire year is our calling card on being able to defend guys.

Boston College has been playing well. They obviously have been a little unlucky the last two games, with a total of five overtimes.

The last five games, they’ve been making 11 threes per game, and we wanted to do a good job. I thought our guys were completely locked in on the defensive end from the start. I thought Jayden Taylor kind of set the tone for us early and really got after those guys and showed that we came out and won.

Something to build on, you know, something to build on. I’m excited about the way we played, and we just got to continue to just play that way and get better.

Brandon (Huntley-Hatfield) talked about how this team isn’t throwing up a white flag even after what happened Wednesday night. How different was the feel between Wednesday night and this?

Yeah, you know, I challenged them a little bit.I just wanted to see what type of guys I had in my locker room, and I think to a man, no one took anything personal.

They all were committed to say, ‘hey, you know, we looked at it as we have seven regular season games, and you start by taking one at a time.’ Brandon’s comments is what we were all about the last couple of days. We locked in.

Everybody’s on the same page. I let them talk to each other, kind of holding each other accountable for what we were not doing. Sometimes when you lose a game, it wakes you up a little bit.

We have lost a few of them, but most of them we’ve been in. The Louisville game woke us up because we just didn’t like the way the separation was.

The players remarked about the energy that the two DJ’s kind of gave them before the game. Could you sense the difference?

I didn’t even know that they gave me energy before the game. I look up and I was like, ‘man, hold on.’ DJ Burns, DJ Horne, they’re both sitting courtside.

I mean, ‘man, they’re still good.’ No, it was, it was great to have those three in the building, the both DJs and Casey Morsell. It reminds you just seven, eight, nine months ago, man, we just cut down nets as ACC champions and a Final Four.

It also reminds you that at one point, a lot of people were down on that team, then obviously we ended up winning nine straight games. Not making that prediction now, but what I’m saying is, when you got basketball, it’s a long season. You’re never out of it, based on the situation. Just to see those guys, I think it’s a great inspiration.

They look good too. I was like, ‘I wish I could’ve snuck them in the game a little bit at times.’ But we were able to win the game without them today playing.

But you never know. I’m like, ‘man, with this new legislation that’s coming, you may take a former player and play him two games just throughout your year. I just got to pick which two it’s going to be.’

You got some good play out of your big guys today too. 

Coming into the year, we thought that would be one of our best positions.

Both of those guys hadn’t played well enough to obviously get us over the hump. It was so much pressure, been so much pressure on our guards, because we hadn’t scored. But 17 from the five, and I thought both of them were equally good today. They both had great energy. They both did a great job and we need that moving forward.

As a coach, to see a happy locker room, how nice is that for you?

It’s great for me because when you look at this, it’s a very thin line. We could have had eight of these. We just were unfortunate to be on the other side of it.

I can point out the games where we didn’t play well and there was a lot of separation at Wake Forest, a lot of separation. Then obviously at home against Louisville. If you look at every other game, we’re in the game, possibly to the last four minutes.

So it’s good to see our guys back jumping around and happy and hope they have a good time tonight. Not too much fun. We’ll take off tomorrow. But it was good to see them happy.

You mentioned, like with the game against Louisville, not playing Dennis (Parker Jr.) was kind of a feel thing. Then he made some nice plays here, especially in the second half of this one. What did you see from him? What was the confidence that you had?

You know, I told our guys, ‘I don’t want anybody’s feelings to be hurt,’ but I told you guys moving forward, if I feel like a certain player can give us energy in a certain game, that’s who I’m going to go with, and I thought playing Dennis would, and Dennis gave us great energy early.

He continued to play. I didn’t think Dontrez (Styles) had a really good game tonight, but I thought Dennis did a good job. That’s what we’re going to do moving forward.

Like, we got to find who’s got it that night. There’s not a lot of separation between 1 and 10, so at the end of the day, you know, be happy for your teammate.

And I think, Dontrez was happy to see Dennis and vice versa.

Did you feel that you could force turnovers tonight, because BC doesn’t have a traditional point guard?

No, I didn’t know that we would play as well as forcing 16 turnovers.

I think 12 turnovers may be the first or second most in ACC played this year, but I thought we set the tone. I mean, I have to give Jayden Taylor a lot of credit.

He really got out to the ball at the beginning of the game. Then from that point on, they started Beadle, and unfortunately for Beadle, JT was playing really well.

I think he had four turnovers in four minutes, and that kind of set the tone for us.

Given where you guys sit in the standings, does it feel like you’ve kind of started a league tournament? Going one by one at the end of the year?

We got six, and we’re going to take them one at a time, and we’re going to see what we have at the end of it. I just think that’s the best approach to have.

It doesn’t matter if you say, ‘if I win this game, I win this.’ You got to play them all and we’re going to lock in, and hopefully we can build on this one right here.

You all shot 50 percent, I think, on your two-point shots, but really struggled from three. Are you concerned about how many threes you took tonight?

No, we just didn’t make them. I thought we had some great looks.

I mean, Dontrez, I thought his looks were great. They just didn’t go in. I didn’t think he shot it with balance.

Three’s are a tricky thing. We’re not a team that make a lot of threes. When we do, it’s an advantage.

We’re typically a five or six made threes, you know, five or six makes per game. So I’m not concerned. I mean, if I felt like they were jacking them up and they were bad shots, I would have a lot of concern, but I thought we had some great looks. I want those guys to take those shots with confidence.

You talked about creating turnovers earlier, but how critical was it to actually cash those in? Something that you weren’t able to do on Wednesday night against Louisville?

Yeah, I love our numbers.

You talk about 15 points off of turnovers, 18 points in transition. It was like I told the guys, ‘man, this at the end of the game, man, it’s the first time I’ve seen in a long time that we got all in transition and had dunks and did all the other stuff. We look like we’re supposed to look.’

That’s because we created so much off our defense. This team’s not blessed to be a great offensive team, but when we create stuff off our defense, we can score the basketball, and that’s the way we have to play.

I thought it was great. We were very active.

We had 22 deflections at halftime. I don’t know how many we finished with, but we try to get 40 a game.

But at halftime, we had 22.

Now that this streak has ended, how hard was it for you to kind of keep this whole thing together and get to this point where you can win again?

Honestly, not hard. We showed up every day.

Like, there’s not one day that I felt like our guys felt sorry for themselves. I mean, we showed up and we worked every day. If you could see our practice every day, you would think that we were undefeated.

Like, it was not hard. Now, internally, because we don’t like to lose, but as far as our effort and how hard we competed against each other every day, it’s great. We’re not having a great year, but the standard here is you compete every day, and that’s just the way it is. If we don’t, we just won’t practice. If we don’t have a standard here and a culture here, maybe we don’t win them all, but we play hard all the time.

Did you send anybody home?

No, I didn’t.

Michael is struggling a little bit offensively, but he had six assists, no turnovers. Can you speak to just the importance of having him on the team?

You know Michael don’t play till March, right? He doesn’t start playing till March.

This is all exhibition games for him. No, he hasn’t played great offensively, but it was great to see him have six assists and no turnovers.

I mean, that’s just the bottom line. That’s what he brings to our team. He’s a calming force.

Trey’s starting to play better basketball, so I can get him in a little bit and play different people at the point. But, it’s funny and it’s crazy. I mean, if you want to talk about criticism, I get it.

As a coach, I’m going to get criticism. I’m a coach, that’s what it is. But a guy like Michael can get criticized so much when he was a part of something so special.

Sometimes I think we have short-term memory. 37 and 40 years. As you write, I want you to write that too.

‘Hey, they’re not having a good year, but think about 37 and 40 years’ that everybody told us, ‘hey man, we ain’t seen anything in 37, 40 years.’ Okay? I remember Dave (Doeren) at the end of his press conference saying, ‘hey man, when he was hired, all he had to do was beat Carolina.’ How about winning championships? That’s what we’ve done.

A lot of people are disappointed. There’s nobody more disappointed than the folks in the locker room and all that other stuff. But, I saw all the videos from the Bell Tower.

I saw everybody in D.C. I saw everybody at the Final Four. Man, I understand. We did something really special, because a lot of folks took it for granted and they had to wait 40 years for it to happen.

We did something special. So that doesn’t mean that this team gets grace, but Michael, man, the guy hit a great shot against Virginia and, boy, you would think he’s the worst player to ever have played here. If it was up to him, he should have just retired right after the Virginia game, or after nine. So I get a little offended when it comes to my players. I don’t get offended by me.

I don’t read your shit. I really don’t. I really don’t.

I’m talking about the social media stuff, but when I hear someone says something about my players, man, I got a problem with that, because those dudes punch the clock all the time. So I’m happy we’re going to continue to fight.

I appreciate all you guys do. Reporting the facts are the facts. You got to do that sometime.

But at the end of the day, somebody should understand that something special happened at NC State that hasn’t happened in a long time. So have a great day. Hope you guys are well.