Kevin Keatts: "We Have To Play NC State Basketball"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts discussed Jayden Taylor, North Carolina, defending the paint, and much more with the media via Zoom during the ACC's weekly teleconference.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

Just going back to Saturday. In terms of your defensive plan against McNeeley, what did you think of him going in? What did you think of the way your guys defended him?
Yeah, you know what we wanted Mike obviously to make everything tough for him. He is one of the elite shooters in our league and probably in the country. I thought we did a decent job. I thought late he got available. I think early he started off and made one and then he got available late. But he draws so much attention. He makes you extend your defense a little bit because he can shoot it from so far behind the three-point line.

Hadn't shot the ball great and we wanted to make sure that we continued that. And I thought we were just okay with him. I thought he made some shots. Obviously one of the things we talked about is making him deck the basketball instead of being able to shoot standstill shots because he's elite at that when you do that.

And then a year ago he was kind of a catch-and-shoot guy primarily, this year he seems more comfortable with that mid-range jumper. How does that kind of add to his challenge?
Well, anytime you got a guy who can make shots out the NBA line, everybody's going to try to run him off the line and you can get to a one-two dribble pull-up it makes it tough on your defense. And he has added that to his game and being able to do that stuff. Because of the fact that Beekman's playing so much point, which kind of moves him more into a more of a secondary ball handler guy, he's been improved in those areas.

Hey Kevin, how are you doing today? Just wanted to ask you about Jayden Taylor and his defense. He's been really good for you guys. Over your time at NC State, in terms of guards, have you had many guys like him in terms of what he can do on the ball?
James, we have been so blessed in the last couple years to have two guys who can really guard the basketball. Last year it was completely Jarkel Joiner who could pick up 94 feet and turn guys and really get after it.

I think Jayden's kind of embraced their role. Wasn't always that way, we talked about when he first got here everything was about scoring and we showed him a lot of clips of how Jarkel Joiner was able to defend the best, pick up pressure, defend the point guard from the other team, but also be able to score his points.

I think now that we're into January and ACC play, he's learned how to play on both ends of the floor, but he can really make it tough for you. He's got great size. He anticipates well and he can turn you as we get up and down the court. So it really fits into what we're trying to do defensively.

What is it like to have three different legit post players that you could throw at an opposing center?
Well it's good. [Laughing] It depends if you’re calling DJ Burns a post defender.

It's been good. I think we got different guys, JZ, that can play different ways. I think the more physical guy in the post will probably be Ben and then Mo can switch a lot of screens but confront you. And then DJ obviously we try to get him sometimes just to use his size and make people shoot over you.

But it is good to have some guys that can give you different looks. In our league we have really good post players and to have three different guys can play you different ways and you got guys like Quinton Post who can step out and shoot it. Armando, who's really good around a basket. PJ who can do both. And so it's good to have three different guys that can guard guys different ways.

3-0 going into this game. Have you spoken about that and the rivalry or do you just strip it down and keep it simple?
No, these guys, believe it or not, they don't know stats as we do. They don't follow it as much as we do. All they looking at is, Rob, that we just won our last game. The one thing I've been able to do with this group is focus in on who we're playing next and obviously the next opponent is Carolina. But we won't talk about, hey, you've won this many games and haven't done that since then. We're proud, you look at the way we've done it so far. It's been really good. Two road games and being able to come back and take care of home court against a very good Virginia team says a lot and we just want to build on that.

The three teams that you lost to, they all seem to be doing really well. I know Tennessee just put it on Ole Miss. How does that bode for you guys and with the NET? Does that sort of tell you, hey, we're not far away?
Well I don't know, Rob, you're asking the wrong man about the NET after being left out a few years ago with 32 NET. So I don't have any idea if that helps us or hurt us. But what I will say, it does show us that we can play different type of games against different type of people and the three teams that we lost to, we think that they were really good basketball teams would've been better if we beat them. I know that would've helped our NET.

But it shows our guys that we've grown and you think about the non-conference, you play a competitive non-conference to prepare you for ACC play and I think those three teams have really prepared us.

One thing I noticed Saturday in your game you don't often play pair two of your bigs together, at least you didn't against Virginia. I don't know if it was mashups or not. But with your four-guard lineup, is that sustainable for you for the course of this season or do you need to kind of adapt and use two of your bigs together and maybe give up some of that perimeter offense?
Yeah, that depends on the opponent. I think if you go back to our Boston College game, we ended up starting both DJ and Ben together because obviously the two bigs that they have, some of it will come down to match-ups. But what I like about it is that we do have the ability to play big. Typically, we've got four guards and we don't have a bigger foreman that's a physical guy that we can play. So a lot of that will come down to depending on who we play and how we match up and that's both offensively and defensively.

Hey Kevin, obviously Carolina is a big matchup, a really experienced opponent. What do you think you can bring to the game that can kind of challenge the Tar Heels?
Well, I think they're a good basketball team. When you look at the numbers, they're playing really well. It's hard to believe that RJ Davis is playing his best basketball because he's played well every year. But he is, he's playing really good basketball and Armando's kind of gotten going last game with 16 points and 14 rebounds.

But I think the good thing about this team is when you look at them, they're really good at every position. I think we have to play NC State basketball. We have to do a good job, probably... Against Virginia we did a great job of moving the basketball and playing inside out.

Obviously we've got a really good post player DJ Burns that we can play through, but I think the biggest thing for us is just staying the course and doing the things that we do well.

Kevin after the game Saturday, Tony mentioned your team's physical toughness. I think you guys had five and ones where you were able to absorb a foul, finish. Did this team strike you as that type of roster as you went about preseason?
David, we have developed toughness from the preseason and the summer until now and then our guys are believing in one another. One of the things that we talked about with this team is we got to figure out how to get to the free throw line. Early in the year I think everything was outside of the paint and it was either DJ Burns scoring inside and everybody else taking a three. And so now we got some guys who are committed to driving the basketball and we really have done a good job of working on finishing. Today's basketball everybody likes to play off of one foot and hopefully that it works out. We've talked about being strong and making some plays and I think that's helped our basketball team just to be able to get to the paint and play inside out and finish around the rim.

And then as you prepare for Carolina, and obviously Cadeau was a high-level recruit, but his assist to turnover ratio for a freshman I think it's almost three to one this season. As you look at him on video, what are your observations?
Well he's really, really talented. And when you see freshmen, the one thing that they don't do is they don't take care of the basketball. Well, that's not the case in his situation. He's playing really good basketball and I think what's happening is because he's playing so well it's allowed RJ to be able to go and be what he is a natural scorer. But one thing I would say, he's played enough basketball that he won't get rattled.

We'll try to get after him as we play, every guard that we play. But he's matured and he's one of those guys similar to Dennis Parker as a freshman for us that you can see now that it's January they're more comfortable and they're doing better things as freshmen now.

Sometimes it can be hard to find consistency, but do you think that second half against Virginia kind of gave the players a blueprint of what the formula could look like?
I think we were committed to making sure that we played the second half the way we finished the first half. If you look at it we were a little slow getting going, didn't play well offensively at Notre Dame after coming off the break and then once we got going. But I think what happened is the ball, Jacey, didn't stick.

We played inside-out. We moved the basketball. And against a good Virginia team, we talked about this, if you trying to play one-on-one it never works in your favor. And I think our guys follow the scouting report, especially offensively where we were, had a lot of player and ball movement. So when we play that way and everybody's able to touch the basketball, we can be a really good basketball team.