Kevin Keatts’ Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Win Over Wake Forest: TRANSCRIPT

Kevin Keatts met with the media for his postgame press conference after NC State’s 85-73 win over Wake Forest this afternoon. Below is the transcript.

Give our guys a lot of credit. Obviously, when we left Carolina, we didn’t like anything about the way we played in the first half, but if there was silver lining, the silver lining was we played really, really good in the second half and then Paul McNeil played well.

I wanted to shake the lineup up, and I looked at a couple of different situations and decided to insert Paul into the lineup. Obviously, proud of him. Career high, 24 points.

Dontrez Styles had a double-double. Michael (O’Connell) had 13 assists. I thought our defense was really, really good.

It’s a good Wake Forest team. Obviously, we did a good job. I thought we were locked in.

We just did not like the way we played on Wednesday. Obviously, I give these guys a lot of credit because they didn’t ask me a question after the game.

It’s how do you get them up? We punched the clock every day, and no matter what the situation is, we look at it as a one-game situation. I’m proud of our guys for how we responded and played.

Late in the game, you kept Paul on the floor. How much does that say about your trust in him on the defensive side of the floor, just as much as it is about his ability to score?

You know, he’s grown, man. God, if you would have seen him the first month or two, man, what a talented high school scorer, but, you know, couldn’t guard anybody.

Didn’t have any interest in guarding anybody. Really wasn’t making his shots. Wasn’t in shape.

Really loved college basketball. Really loved college life at NC State. I had to bring him in at one point.

I was like, ‘man, are you partying every night?’ But that’s what freshmen do. But the maturity…he’s gotten better, he’s grown and he’s doing it through practice. All three of our freshmen, they’ve show up every day for about an hour before practice and get a lot of shots in, and are staying consistent.

Obviously it’s starting to pay off for him. So I’m happy for him. I trusted him, obviously, the way he was playing, and I thought he did a good job finishing the game.

Speaking of Michael, that was a career high in assists. How important is he to the success of this team as it goes forward?

I think he’s been important over the last couple of years because he’s the guy that…when you look at Michael, I wish he would have had a double-double.

One point more. I asked Craig to see if we could find him one point somewhere from the game that he may have missed. He takes a lot of abuse.

He is a pass-first guy. He’s not a scorer. He’s a pass-first guy, and he needs some guys around him to be successful.

I thought tonight he did a great job of finding everybody. He’s kind of our calming factor. I didn’t think Trey (Parker) was having a good game, and we went with Michael a little bit longer, and I’m proud of him. 13 assists is a lot of assists, and I’m happy for him, and it helped our team.

I don’t know if you’d agree to this, but down 61-56, kind of had the feel of the magic of last year where Michael and Jayden (Taylor) were the ones hitting the shots. As you try to make the ACC tournament, just how much magic do you think is left in this group?

I don’t know about magic, but we’re going to keep fighting. Here’s the luxury about basketball.

You can’t call the scores in. You have to play those games. We’re not going to call the scores in from the rest of them.

We’re going to play the games. You speak of 61-56. I thought what was really, really good was I think we held them to one field goal for the rest of that time.

Steve’s done a really good job with their team. I hope that they make the NCAA tournament because they deserve to. Our problem with our league is our numbers, and a couple of teams with numbers around the league could hurt them from getting in.

I know that. I played in that game for years, and so I think it’s a tournament team. I think they’re really good, and hopefully they have a chance to be able to play.

Coach, the turnovers were up a little bit, but it was kind of offset by the offensive rebounds. What was the thinking in having a four-guard lineup? I hate turnovers, and the last couple of games, we’ve turned the ball over in the first half more than we’ve done all year long.

I thought we made some lazy passes early, but I thought we needed those four guards to be able to move the ball a little bit. You look at us, what’s impressive is we had 23 assists on 29 made field goals, so we really shared the basketball. You guys have covered us all year long, and I told you, I said, when this team shares the basketball and everybody plays well and we get 23 and 29, we’re a good basketball team, but we don’t have the one guy that can score every game, so we need everybody to play together. One of the first things I look at with this team is how many assists do we have on made field goals, and that’s what it was.

Obviously you made the decision with McNeil, and then conversely that meant Marcus had to go to the bench. How do you think he handled that? Was he sort of a high octane guy off the bench? What was your impression of those players?

They’re young, and so everybody’s going to be a little disappointed, but I didn’t see the disappointment, but I thought Marcus responded really, really well. I thought he came in nine points.

I thought he made two really, really big free throws down the stretch. We’re talking about at this moment, ‘hey, because of the way our season’s gone with so many close games, don’t be worried about starting. Be worried about finishing the game,’ and he was one of those guys that finished the game.