Keatts: "We Had A Really Good Week"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts fielded questions from the media on the ACC's weekly teleconference.
Opening Statement...
We had, what I consider, a really good week. Obviously, two road games and we were able to come out with two really good wins. Obviously I have said this a long time, college basketball if you win on the road it is golden -- especially in the ACC.
When you look at the Pittsburgh game, it was a game that we trailed I would say 95 percent of the game and our guys found a way to win the game at the end. A great situation for us because I think that game gave us a lot of confidence.
Then, an unbelievable atmosphere at Chapel Hill. We played another really good team on their home floor and the game went into overtime. Our guys found a way to finish the game so a very week for us.
We are able to take off for a couple of days and get ourselves mentally and physically prepared to play on Saturday against Notre Dame.
Is this a good time to have the midweek off on the playing schedule?
That is a great question. If you are playing great basketball, you want to continue to play without having a week off but we are tired. We have had a tough stretch -- us playing at Pittsburgh at nine o’clock and then we got back at three in the morning. We didn’t get much out of them on Thursday and then have to turn around and play a noon game, we have kind of stretched them thin.
Even though we are playing well and coming off of a great game I think the rest is more better for us at this point.
How has Al Freeman developed this season and how did he take coming off the bench when you told him?
It has been tough on Al. As a coach, I don’t have to be tough on him because he is very critical of himself, but it is good to see him playing good basketball -- to be able to relax a little bit.
I think one of the reasons he is starting to play basketball a lot better is because we have got Markell Johnson back into the lineup and the responsibility of him handling the ball. We have kind of taken some of that away from him. He can just be able to play off the ball and score the basketball.
As far as him coming off the bench, it was more just so he could see the game. Obviously, to relax a little bit. He is playing and he is playing starter’s minutes.
What a great game when you think about he was not shooting the ball well. To be in the Dean Dome and go 7-for-7 from threes and to make some big shots -- you think back to the Pittsburgh game on Wednesday night, even though he wasn’t playing well in the first half and some of the second half he made a huge three and then he went to the free-throw line and made two big free throws. Hopefully this gets him going.
I would say if I had to contribute anything to his success right now, it is the ability to add Markell to take some of the pressure off of him.
What do you think the qualities are for a player to have a scoring streak where he gets at least 10 points in a game?
I think, number one, you have got to be a good player to do that. It sounds like something easy but it is tough anytime you have double-digit scoring streaks, but I also think you have, in college basketball, to be able to take good shots to get there and try to be efficient.
You also have to have teammates who understand who you are as a player and make sure that you get the ball in the right spot.
One of the most obvious things is you have to play with confidence to do that because when you are scoring in double-figures every night you start to become the focal point of a lot of the defenses and if you can do that in games on top of each other surely that means you are a really good basketball player.
Would you say the Virginia defense is doing things amazing or is it just simply a really good defense?
When I went back and looked at the tape, I realized Tony [Bennett] had six guys on the floor. I didn’t realize he had six guys on the floor [laughing].
No, they are good. They take pride and it is obvious that Tony is an unbelievable coach and he spends a lot of time on those guys getting to defend guys. I think it is a combination of both.
I have said this all along, as a team they really good defensively but he has some individual pieces that do a really good job and take pride in getting stops.
What people don’t understand is, I think, their offense because they are very efficient. You can’t speed them up and other stuff so I think part of their defense being great is how efficient they are on the offensive end. They are one of the teams in the country that operate better with a late shot clock and make shots at the end.
Then, obviously, you come down and you take a couple of bad shots and they get a rebound and then take their time and score, I think that helps their defense a little bit.
They are tremendous. This is not the first time he has had a great defensive team. This year’s team, their numbers on the defensive end are amazing right now.
I don’t think [seeing the Pack-Line defense] is rare. I think people play some version of it but it is rare because I don’t know that anybody in college basketball right now plays it as well as Virginia. Certainly, we played some teams in scouting that do play the Pack-Line and you got to be able to make shots and share the basketball and all that other stuff, but I don’t know that we call it as much Pack-Line as Virginia should come up with their own name for it.
They do a great job. I am not sure where they fit in the country but they have to be number one. I know when we played them they were number one on the defensive end, so I do think you see it. I just don’t think anybody is as good at it as they are right now.
Do you think NC State’s conditioning will make a big difference in such a deep league this year?
I think every team has their strengths and weaknesses. One of our strengths in the last few minutes of the game is we have been able to finish plays and I am not saying the other team wasn’t in good shape but just we pride ourselves on being able to pay up-tempo on both ends of the floor. To do that, you have got to be in great shape to do it.
We have been able to finish some games because I thought our conditioning was good and we could play an extra five minutes or so.