NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts and DJ Burns, Casey Morsell and Michael O’Connell met with the media last night after the Wolfpack’s 79-73 Overtime win over Oakland in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. You can watch the video below, and the transcript is underneath.

Kevin Keatts

Well, for those who are not here in Pittsburgh, I’ll start off by saying that Oakland is as good as advertised. I mean, Greg’s done a great job with their program, and it was a tough hard-fought. It felt like a boxing match.

Our guys were tremendous. It was a back-and-forth game. We bent a little bit, but we never broke. We made big plays when we had to have big plays. I thought one of the biggest things for us was our character really shined through when we needed it. We stepped up in many ways. We had to get big stops. We had to get big baskets. At times things weren’t going our way. And it just shows you the growth of, obviously, this team and how they’re locked in and they’re focused, and their love for one another and how they play for one another, it’s been very impressive. This run we’ve been on is really, really good.

All the credit has to go to the hard work that they’ve put in, and obviously they’re receiving the fruits of their labor because of that. So excited about our guys. We’re going to the Sweet 16, guys. And this was a team that most people didn’t think we could even make it out of DC last weekend. But I’m proud of their fight. I’m proud of just who they are and how we have really grown as a team.

Well, he’s (Gohlke) dangerous and you gotta pay so much attention to him, and then you look at the fact that Trey Townsend is really good. So they’ve got a kind of inside-out punch with those 2 guys who can really shoot the basketball. And what he’s done in the last couple of days is simply impressive. I want to say, what, 16 threes in two days? So you gotta pay so much attention to him. And here’s what makes him really special, is they know that he can shoot the ball, so they do a great job of running a lot of plays for him, and running all the stagger screens and trying to get elevator screens for him. I thought our guys did a really good job. We knew we couldn’t stop him from taking threes, but we wanted him to take tough threes and shoot a bad percentage and I thought we did a great job with that.

You know, that’s the strength of our team (balance) and at one point it wasn’t. Early on it was either DJ Horne or maybe JT (Taylor) could have a good night. I think one of the things if you look back at the 7 games we won in a row, is I think that everyone has really stepped up in different ways, and every night there’s someone else. DJ Horne, I mean DJ Burns was great tonight. I thought Michael, even though he might not have impacted the game much with his scoring, he had a career high in assists (8). So that’s kind of what makes us special right now. That makes us tough to guard because on any given night, one of these guys can lead us in scoring.

We were running out of players (Diarra and Middlebrooks fouling out)…I looked around…I was going to put Levi Watkins in at one point. We needed another post guy. We had some calls that didn’t go our way and I told you before, like I said earlier, Trey Townsend had a great game. 30 points and 13 rebounds. He is as good as advertised. But it got tough at the end because we didn’t have anyone else that we could throw in the game. So we decided to go 4 guards, and it actually helped us on the offensive end because Jayden Taylor was able to knock down that 3 in the corner.

Yeah, I think it’s been a common theme for 3 years, and it’s crazy because when we do, meaning we as the ACC, we get teams in the tournament, the few 5 that we’re getting in pretty much play pretty well. And so we try to send that message early on before we got to Selection Sunday, that we play well once we get in the tournament. But we gotta figure it out. Our league is really good. One of the reasons why we’re playing good basketball is because we’re battle tested. A lot of times, a lot is put on the non-conference. You play 11 games. So let’s say we play 5 or 6 Power 5 games and then we have 5 or 6 bye games. They’re good. They’ll challenge you. But you can’t tell me that’s more challenging than playing 20 ACC games and playing at great venues. So we gotta figure it out. We’re deserving. Our league is going to go to 18 teams and I think we should be able to get 10 teams in. And that’s up to us as coaches. You know, we have to figure out do we need to win more games in November? How do you schedule? We gotta do a lot of different things. But we got a great league. I think it’s the best league in college basketball.

It’s so tough to referee him (Burns), and he probably gets fouled more than anybody, and I’m not saying these officials or any other officials. So he’s got no choice. Very seldom do you see him get to the free throw line, when you can make a case that every other possession that he touches the basketball, he gets fouled. And so we’ve talked about the maturity of it. It’s like, what are you going to do? I mean, you don’t like it, you get a technical foul. Just move on and just play through contact, and I think that’s where he’s matured.

It didn’t happen just this year. This started last year and then he’s matured to the point where he’s like, ‘I’m not going to get any calls, so I’ll just play through all contact.’

I just think we’ve come together. Like we’ve been a good team all year long. We just hadn’t stacked games. We hadn’t stacked opportunities. You think about it, a lot of people put so much into our last 4 games, but they didn’t talk about our first 6 games. We were 5-1. We had a tough schedule. And when we look back at it, it wasn’t so much about the teams that we played, which were very good. It’s what we didn’t do. You look at those 4 games, we were in all of those games and had the opportunity to win them. And I just think we have cut down on our mistakes, and most of them are on the defensive end. This team can score the basketball, but defensively we were a mess at times. Ball screen coverage wasn’t good. Our assistant coaches have done a great job with scouting. We weren’t doing a great job of comprehending scouting reports, and now we’re doing it. And I think one of the biggest things is we believe and trust in one another. If you’re not having a good night, then you gotta trust your brother beside you, and I think that’s one of the things that we’ve matured in.

Michael O’Connell 

I think it’s huge for us, obviously, when he’s (Burns) down there doing his thing and we just keep feeding him. We have no problem feeding him. And he brings energy and he’s bringing great plays down there, and we can feed off that. I think it’s big time for us. When he’s playing at an all time high with confidence, we kind of just go along with it, and it helps us out.

I think going into the game, we don’t really focus on who’s the underdog or who’s the higher seed or lower seed. It’s kind of the match-up at hand. Obviously any team in here is a great team and they could have been higher or lower, or we could have been. It doesn’t really matter. Going into the game, we take the match-up personal and we kind of go out there and play. We still had a lot of fans out there. The place was rocking. When we get going and get scoring and get stops, it was loud. I really couldn’t tell a difference if there was more or less fans. It was great to have our fans out there just supporting us all the way.

I mean I was just taking what the defense was really giving me. They were pressing out. If they stepped up I was going to kick it, but I felt like I could take a lay-up and I tried to do what I could do to finish the play.

I think the biggest thing, honestly, is no matter what the outside noise is we gotta believe in ourselves, and I think that’s what we’ve been doing to this point since before the ACC tournament. We kind of left everything in the past and we had to take one game at a time. And I think that’s what we’ve been doing now. Coach has prepared us really well and we’ve taken that message, and we’ve tried to apply it to the floor. If people are with us it’s great, if they’re not, it is what it is. We’ll take all the support we can get, but at the same time we have to rely on the people in the locker room to go out there and compete.

Things aren’t always going to be pretty and go your way. But if we can stick together with the guys you’re out there, I think that’s going to go a long way. When times are not favorable, you gotta be able to pick each other and keep competing. At the end of the day you compete with the 5 guys on the court, and the guys that are playing with you.

Casey Morsell

When D.J. (Burns) gets going it makes it easier for us guards on the perimeter. He draws so much attention, and all we could do is just kind of stay ready, stay ready to shoot, stay ready to make a play. But when he’s going, we’re very hard to stop.

No. I’ve never played anyone (Gohlke) who could shoot at that caliber. One thing that Jack does, he tests your awareness, because he’s always moving, and in order to kind of slow him down you just gotta be in shape, and you just kind of gotta be aware of where he is at all times. He tested that. But it wasn’t just me, it was a team effort. JT (Taylor) guarded him and Horne, Mike (O’Connell). Everyone was kind of doing their best to kind of slow him down.

I mean, we’re going to stay connected, no matter what goes on on the outside. For us it’s been a roller coaster of emotions, but we’ve seen a lot, and we’re not going nowhere. We’re here.

Our strength coach, our doctors that travel with us, massages, to help us be ready to play and not get tired. That’s something that’s definitely given us advantage in March.

DJ Burns

Yes, sir. I enjoy things like that (talking with Oakland fans). That’s a part of the game. The fans, they’re going to really come at you, especially when they have a team like that with the capabilities that they have, you gotta talk. You gotta have some fun with it.

Again, it’s one of those games where I had the choice to get in my feelings about getting fouled or continue to play hard. I just hit a point where I was like, I just gotta ignore it because it’s not going away. So I just wanted to try my best to keep going for my guys.

I’m just saying welcome back (people that didn’t expect NC State to make the Sweet 16). They didn’t really believe in us. They probably still don’t, but that doesn’t matter to us. We’re just going to stay together. If you’re supporting us, thank you. If not, that’s what it is.

I think that’s what March is about (ending the regular season the way they did, and going on this run). Some teams got here by winning their conference just like us and that doesn’t mean they’re a bad team. We just kept playing for each other. I think that’s all it was about for us.