Kevin Keatts: "We've Got to Get Consistent"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 77-59 road loss to Wake Forest Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.
On Mike James’ status...
We were able to throw him into a couple of drills — he’s had some really bad luck — and the next day — I’m not telling this because he would’ve been ready to get on the floor and play — but he was sick. He came in with probably 102 temperature, so we’ve had to back off his recovery to make sure he’s okay.
On falling behind after cutting the deficit to two points...
The most frustrating thing about our group right now is that we’ve put ourselves in so many different deficits throughout the entire year, and it’s no different in this game. We dug such a big hole. I don’t want to be known as the comeback team. We’ve got to figure out how to get off to a good start. I thought we had a great start at UVa, and what’s happening is that we’re finding different ways to lose games. One of the things we have to do is get very consistent. The one thing about our program and this year’s team is we’re not consistent right now. It’s not just from offense to defense, but it’s not consistent in what we’re getting from each player each game. One game, one of our guys will have a great game, and the other one, someone else will have a good game. I’m looking for more consistency as we move forward.
On his technical foul...
Efton Reid got two fouls in the first half, and I thought they did everything they could in the second half to make sure he wouldn’t get a third or a fourth. I thought it was as simple as that. The play that I got the technical foul on, I didn’t think he was vertical. We always talk about being vertical; I thought his arms came down on our guy.
On what Tommy Morrissey said about the play...
What do they always say? They made the call, and it is what it is. I disagreed with it, and I got the technical foul. That’s how it works in basketball. You don’t like it? You argue it, and you’ll probably get a technical, and I got one.
On surrendering 50-percent shooting or higher in three of the last four games...
We have to get connected defensively. We’re having too many breakdowns. One of our biggest things is that we haven’t been able to take how we practice and how we clean up things in practice, and when we get in the game situation, we haven’t gotten better at it. We’ve scripted, and we’ve changed the way we practice a little bit. We do more four-on-four segments so we can play in game situations. We’ve just got to continue to show film. We’ve got to continue to get better. I thought we had too many breakdowns on ball-screen coverages. I thought we did a really good job guarding Wake Forest’s initial sets, and then late shot clock is when I thought we had too many breakdowns.
On the players losing focus...
Teams are different. We’ve got so many new pieces. I get it; so many other people do, too, but we’re still trying to learn each other. We’ve got to learn each other really quick. We’re having too many breakdowns as a group. We foul a guy with two seconds going down. They would drive a gap, and we got called for fouls. We’ve done some things at the end of the shot clock, instead of being solid, that haven’t helped us. The bad thing about it is that we’re losing games because of it; the good thing about it: if we clean it up, obviously we’d win those games.
On the recent second-half woes on offense...
It’s weird because, when you look at it, we’ve shared the ball in both halves at the beginning. You can take the stat sheet and look at it: at the half, we had seven assists. For whatever reason, the ball sticks in the second half. We’re trying to run more sets in the second half so that the ball doesn’t stick and so we don’t become individuals. With this particular group, we’ve got a couple of things going on where, when we get behind, guys are trying to figure out who they are, and we’ve got some guys who feel like they have to take it upon their shoulders to bring us back which leads to a lot of tough shots. In the first half against Virginia and Wake, we really, really shared the basketball; in the second half, we didn’t. We’re going to figure it out. It’s early into the season. We’re three games into the ACC. We’re going to figure it out, and we will figure it out.
On sustaining success moving forward...
We’ve got to get back. We’ll take tomorrow off, and then we’ll get in the gym. Really, the only focus we have right now is Notre Dame. We have to figure out how to put together a couple of halves of basketball. I would say we’ve played 25-30 minutes of good basketball in each game. We haven’t reached a point where we’ve gotten 37, 38, 39, 40 minutes, even back it down to 32 minutes of good basketball. When you take segments out of our games, we’re really good, but we haven’t been able to sustain it for the entirety. It’s a little bit of everything. We’ve got to get better in certain areas, but it’s a little bit of everything that’s hurting us. Tonight, I felt like we, a team who really takes care of the basketball, had some bad turnovers and bad situations at bad times. A team that’s done a really good job of defending the three-point line, we only gave up six, but at certain moments, we gave up a couple big threes that we didn’t need to give up, and we forced a couple of things.