Kevin Keatts: "It's Something We Can Build on"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 66-65 win over Notre Dame Wednesday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference. An abbreviated transcript is provided below.
Opening Statement
First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. When we got going, I thought our crowd got involved, especially at the end. We talked over the last couple days about being better defensively. I didn’t feel like, at Wake Forest or Virginia, we put any game pressure on them with our defense. I told them I'm not worried about offense right now, if you defend like we're capable of, then the offense will go, and certainly that happened. I thought Jayden Taylor was really good down the stretch. He did a good job and hit some big shots for us. I thought we were completely locked in. We didn't have as many scouting report breakdowns, and that's the one thing we've been talking about; our ball screen defense hadn’t been very good, and I thought we locked in, and we really did a good job with that part of it. I’m proud of our guys. ACC win are hard to come by. It seems like, every time we play Notre Dame, it's a one-point game somewhere, but I’m very excited to get out of here with a win, and it’s something we can build on.
On the final play of the game...
What was going through my mind was just, “[Markus Burton] better not make this shot. He better not make this shot.” Ben Middlebrooks stayed with him for about four seconds. The one thing we didn’t want to do was give Burton his right hand. We knew, if he got to his right hand, he could get it all the way to the rim, but we knew who the ball was going to go to. I thought Jayden Taylor did a good job challenging him at the end, and obviously we got a hold of the ball to get a rebound.
On the team's resiliency after the loss against Wake Forest...
We’ve got competitors in that locker room, and we didn’t like the way we played. We really didn’t. As we go through this season, we’re going to have ups and downs. We completely know that, not only us, but everyone in the league and in the country. It’s, “Can you bounce back and get better?” We looked at the schedule, and we knew we had a really good Notre Dame team coming in, especially when Markus Burton returned. He had 23 points in his first game back. We didn’t like the way we played at Wake Forest on the defensive end, and we really wanted to get better.
On what he said to the team when they were down seven in the second half...
Just continue to play. We talked about a couple things we did to give them the lead. We had a couple of breakdowns. We let Tae Davis get to his right hand. We had a couple of 50-50 balls that we did not get, and I said, “That’s the difference in the game.” We talked about that and how we can clean it up. What was important to us was that we came back in the second half and played really well. This particular team hadn’t had a great second half yet this season, so I'm glad we were able to put one together tonight.
On what a close comeback win like that does for the team's confidence...
It’s early. You get a team, and you’re going to leave out there tonight. You’re going to leave either 1-3 or 2-2. Two-and-two sounds a lot better than 1-3. Then, you’ve got to take care of your home and continue to grow. It’s going to be a long season. We still have a lot of opportunities in the ACC. I was watching games last night, and I was like, “Man, this league is going to give some great opportunities for some great wins.” But you’ve got to compete every night, and I thought getting away with a good win tonight was a good start for us.
On how Middlebrooks has grown since he joined the program...
He’s gotten better. I mean, you want to talk about a guy who left Clemson and was more in a backup role playing behind P.J. Hall who was a really good basketball player to a guy now who is starting, playing big basketball at NC State, and playing with a lot of confidence. It's good just to see him grow over the last couple of years.
What Saturday’s game against UNC means to him and the program moving forward...
It’s another game that we’ve got to be ready for. We have to be ready for it, and we'll go back in the next couple of days and see where we can clean up from this game. What I'm worried about more with us is, “How do we get better?” Because our focus going into Notre Dame was more about NC State opposed to Notre Dame, so we're going to do some of the same things like, “How can we get better as ourselves,” and then obviously we'll turn our focus to Carolina.