Kevin Keatts: "They Understand Where We Have To Get Better At"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for the ACC's weekly zoom call to discuss the Wolfpack's recent play, Dontrez Styles, and much more.

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

Hey, Kevin, hope you're doing well today. I wanted to ask you about Dontrez Styles.
Didn't rebound it well up at Virginia. Came back, gave you a double-double against Wake Forest. Had ten boards in that game. Was that a point of emphasis for him going in and kind of something you can build on? 
Yeah, James, we're trying to, I mean, Dontrez is a really good basketball player, and what we're trying to get from him is for him to feel comfortable both on both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively, and trying to fit him into what we're trying to do. And one of the things we've asked him to do is to be really aggressive. The games where he's aggressive, I think he really helps our team, and I thought he did a really good job at Wake Forest. One thing I talked about is that he had not played well on the road, and I needed him to be a little bit more assertive on the road, and certainly I thought he was one of the bright spots in the game on Saturday. 

And just to follow up, I thought he did well at times on Hunter Sallis defensively, and I'm not certain if that's a matchup he's typically a drone for you, kind of like an on-ball guard. Did you notice that as well? 
I did. I actually, I thought he did the best job on him, and that's something that we will continue to look at in the future. But I thought he was the one guy that did a really good job, and of course, you know, Sallis ended up with 20, but I thought Dontrez did a really good job on him.  

Coach, what has been your message throughout these last two games, both losses, the inability to close out the games in an orderly fashion, but with this tough stretch coming up at home, Notre Dame on Wednesday, and I think Carolina on Saturday, what has been your message just to the team to kind of, like, right that ship to not become complacent with the last couple of results, but to kind of, like, look for game-by-game mentality? 
Yeah, we have to, we have to increase our stretches of how well we play during times. You know, we've had games where I thought we played 20 really good minutes of basketball, then 25, and, you know, as we continue to go through the season, we gotta get up to, you know, 30 to 35 to ultimately 37. I don't think anybody's going to play great for 40 minutes of basketball, but I think that's been one of our problems, and it's been both offensively and defensively. I think, one, defensively, we've got to be a little bit more solid to create some more opportunities, and then offensively, at times, the ball will stick with us, and so we're continuing to preach that we have to stay consistent. We've got to get, you know, better play for more than just 20 minutes because if you watch us, for 20 minutes, we're really good, and sometimes it's not the straight 20 minutes. It's, 10 in the first half and 10 in the second, but just consistency is what we preached about. 

What has been, like, the attitude from the players, just, like, in practice? Like, are they responding how you want them to after a tough loss, and if not, what can they do to kind of be a reflection of yourself starting Wednesday against Notre Dame? 
Yeah, no, our attitude has been great. The good thing about our team is they understand where we have to get better at, and, and certainly we haven't practiced yet. We were off yesterday, but the approach has been after a loss. We have really gotten into the practice and really worked and really gotten better in some areas, and we'll continue to do that. We just got to get back to being a little bit more stingy on the defensive end, and then our shots will fall offensively. 

The non-conference part of the season did not go too well for the ACC. You've been around this league a long time now. Why do you think that turned out to be the case? 
You know, it's weird. I don't know. It's one of those things where, you know, I thought we had some moments. Some of them will be match-up. I'll be honest with you, I eventually would love to see, and I don't know if we'll ever get a chance to see this. I'd love to see the NIL numbers of the SEC versus ours to see if that has anything to do with some of the different players. I don't know if that'll ever be public. That could be one thing, but, the one thing I will say about our league is though we didn't perform well, in a non-conference, typically when we get in conference, we get better, and then we've always, as you saw with us last year, we've showed very well in the NCAA tournament, but I would love to see if that makes a difference. That's become, unfortunately for everyone, that's become the number one recruiting tool, NIL, so I'd love to kind of see some numbers and see if that has anything to do with it. May have a lot to do with it, may not have anything to do with it.

And how much do you worry that because of that non-conference showing, it's going to be, you know, here we go again in another five-bid league come March? 
Well, unfortunately, it's been like that for a couple years for us in league play, and I think, you know, we just have to, continue to play, continue to get better, and whatever teams we get in, obviously, have always done well, but I don't think we can control anything other than how we perform on the floor and obviously getting our teams or whoever gets in to be prepared to play in the tournament. 

When looking at the film of the last two games, what have you learned based on what you saw the second time after watching rather than, you know, seeing it live? 
Yeah, I would just say Noah, consistency. I mean, you look at, you know, Virginia, and they're all different. The Virginia game, we were all 14, and then the second half, I think we lost our intensity. The Wake Forest game was very similar to the Kansas game. You get down 13 to 15, and then you battle back, and in both games, it was a six-point game at halftime and an eight-point game at halftime. We just have to get past the stretches where we don't play well. If I could cut out those stretches, then we'd be undefeated right now, and I know a lot of coaches can say that part of it, but we got to get better in certain stretches where we're struggling.

And then just to follow up, at Wake Forest, you said the team was still learning each other a little bit as you worked through it. Hitting the halfway point soon, is that a concern at this point in the season, or are you comfortable kind of, with that? 
I don't know that you can ever tell me after what we did last year about timing and all that other stuff. I mean, it just is going to take some teams longer than others, so for me, it's not a concern. I think every team, at some point, if they continue to get better, I think, it's no timetable when they start playing really good basketball, and for us, obviously, we didn't start until we got to the ACC tournament. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen for this team, and I'm not hoping for that, but at this point, I'm not concerned, no.

Going back to Dontrez, obviously, y'all recruited him out of high school, and then when he left Carolina, just how have you seen him grow from the time that y'all were first evaluating him as a high school player to now? 
Well, I think he's grown. I think he's obviously become more perimeter and when I remember him in high school, more athlete than basketball player, and I think he's now becoming more of a basketball player where, you know, he's able to rim drive. He's shot, and, you know, he's making threes now when he didn't shoot it as well in high school, and then he's got a really good mid-range game. The tough thing about him is, he's had to learn in the last few years three different systems, and so we take that for granted, so it takes a little longer for some guys to get going.

Since you went there on NIL, you know what your budget is. What are, and I'm sure you hear things, what do you think, how do you think it compares to the SEC? 
I don't know what theirs is, David. I need you to print something, and I need you to figure out what everybody's getting, and then everybody on this call will be happy with you, but I don't know. I honestly don't know, and I made the statement, and it may come back, and, you know, ACC is higher, but we all know that's not true, but I would, I have no idea.

I'll be honest with you, and that may be, when Mark asked the question, that may be one of those things that I would love to see how it's translating to on the court and, obviously how it affected the SEC-ACC challenge, and it may be as simple as it didn't affect it at all, but I would love to see the numbers. So I'm challenging you, David, to find me some numbers so we can figure that thing out. 

So agents aren't telling you numbers from the SEC? 
Well, of course they are. Numbers that, you know, there's a couple guys that I couldn't get, but no, they're not telling me what everybody's getting, no.

Looking back at almost this time last year, you guys played Notre Dame. It was a very tight, low-scoring game. Michael O'Connell was still coming off the bench. Mohamed Diarra was barely playing in some of the games. Do you ever look back and say, okay, last year we put the pieces together. Now it's the same kind of process this year with your eight newcomers. 
Yeah, it's always going to be a process, and it's funny because I watched that game yesterday, and I was like, man, how different were we at that point? We had no identity. We were trying to figure it out, and we got better that game, and things changed certainly after that game a little bit, but it's the same thing here. When you have so many new pieces, the unfortunate thing for us, I was talking to my staff this morning, is that we really only had one consistent starter from last year's team at the end. That was Michael, and everybody else is playing a completely different role. Even Ben, as well as he played, he came off the bench, and JT was more of our, you know, sixth man and our first guard off the bench, so we're asking a bunch of guys to play a different role, and it's just going to take a little time, and certainly as we go through this process, we got to continue to grow and get better.