Kevin Keatts: "It Was A Good Night For Us"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts answered questions from the Wolfpack's radio crew following the road win at Miami.

I imagine there were many things that satisfied the head coach tonight.
We played hard. that’s what I asked these guys, to play hard, and we led with it.

You guys and everyone who can hear my voice will be excited we scored 83 points, but I thought our guys did a good job. When you look at it, we made nine three’s, got to the free throw line 17 times, which I thought was good even though Miami got there 28 times.  

I thought guys played well. Devon Daniels toward the end of the first half was really good, and you can’t argue with what Markell Johnson and CJ Bryce did.  Both of those guys with a double-double. C.J. with 11 rebounds, and Markell tied a season-high with 12 assists.

I thought we got great play from everyone who played. Danny Dixon came in and did a good job. Braxton Beverly made some really good shots for us that he needed to see the ball go in and we also needed.

It was a great team win on the road, and as I say, road wins are golden.

What did you like about how State finished this game?
I thought our composure. 

I pulled Markell Johnson over and said, “Look, you have to take control of the game.”  They switched 1-through-5 which threw us off a little bit, and I thought we settled, took some questionable shots, and during that stretch we had some bad turnovers.

That being said, I was happy with the way we finished the game.

Might this have been the best game from Manny Bates?
Manny Bates played a tremendous game. Four blocks, 10 points, seven rebounds, four offensive.  He had some big plays for us.

This was the best three-point performance in a while, how much was Markell Johnson responsible for that?
I thought he did a good job of finding people. 

We put CJ Bryce in the middle of the zone and he made some plays and made some shots.  We moved it around.

Miami, similar to us because of a short bench, has been forced to play some 2-3 zone and haven’t been great at it so we knew we could get some good looks.

They have you for 13 fastbreak points. That’s a big relief for your offense too.
Scoring is down across the country, but it was good as a coach to see the ball go through the hole, see us get out in transition, and I thought our energy level, we were able to get in our presses and force the tempo a little bit.

Thoughts on the defense of DJ Vasilijevic.
I thought we did a great job. When you look at him, 7-22, 3-14, and I thought he still made some tough shots at the end. He had to take 22 shots to get 18 points.

Both teams were limping. We were without Jericole Hellems, and DJ Funderburk couldn’t finish the game.  That being said, we were down to six or seven guys we could put in the game, maybe six actually.

We’re going to get ice cream. We haven’t had ice cream since Charlottesville so we’re going to get some ice cream.

This team, when you get balance, has a different outlook.
We’re a good basketball team, and when we have everyone playing together. All four of those guards came up huge.

It was good to see Braxton Beverly get 14 points and make 4-of-7 three’s.  He’s another guy who hadn’t made three’s.

We’re a dangerous team when guys are playing that way.

How did you like the ball movement for most of the game.
I thought we did a good job. Contribute some of the [ball sticking] to Miami’s defense.  When they started switching we started standing around and everyone wanted to drive the big. It didn’t work.

We had a timeout and wen tto our dribble weave series and driving the lane. 

I thought Markell Johnson was really good getting in the paint.  He made some tough shots in the paint, at the rim, and I thought he did a great job of going in the paint and spraying out to people for easy shots.

It was a good night for us.

I thought we saw some confused Miami people when you came out in the zone.
Yeah, I just wanted to run the clock out. We were chasing DJ around and I just wanted to run the clock out.