Kevin Keatts: "We Had a Lot of Fight"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 74-64 road loss at No. 2 Duke Monday evening.

NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.

Opening Statement

I thought we had a lot of fight. It was a really good game. We've been on the unfortunate side of a lot of wins and losses this year, but what I told our guys is, “Hey, if you can stay consistent and play the way we play tonight, [we’ll be able to win],” and Duke’s good. Duke’s a really good basketball team, arguably the number one team in the country. I thought we did a really good job, and in the first half, I thought we had great player and ball movement. I thought we really shared the basketball and were able to get out and transition. I just thought they made a few more plays than we made. Obviously, Cooper [Flagg] is as good as advertised. He's difference in the game. If I had Cooper Flagg, I may win that, too, but he's a good player. [Jon Scheyer’s] done a good job of centering a really good group of guys around a really good superstar. We'll learn from this. We'll try to get better. We'll continue to work. Our guys understand that we're capable of anything if we continue just to stick together, grind, and play good basketball.

On Trey Parker’s success...

I'm getting really excited about our young guys. It's taken them a little while to come into their own, but Paul [McNeil, Jr.] has shown some moments last game. Now, you’ve got Trey Parker and Bryce [Heard]; all three of those guys are really working hard, and we needed them to develop. Obviously, we don't have Mike James, and so we needed another guard to step up and play well, and those guys are starting to contribute. I really like that.

On Dontrez Styles’ performance...

He was good. He was locked in. He came out focused. We scheduled Kansas so we could have [a game] in the non-conference [schedule] to prepare us for any atmosphere that we were going to be in. Obviously, these are two of the better atmospheres: Kansas and Duke. We didn't play well early at Kansas, but once we settled in, I thought we played them even throughout the entire game. I think that really helped us. You know, Dontrez was one of those guys in Kansas who didn't play well early. I thought that game prepared us for how we played today, and I thought he was good. He came out, he was focused, he made shots, he was active, he drove the basketball. He would rebound the basketball.

On what’s kept the Wolfpack from winning close games...

We just don't have a superstar. When things got really tight for Duke, everybody in the entire building knew who they were going to. We've got a bunch of really good players that obviously need each other to play well, and so we don't have that closer in every game. We don't have a Jarkel Joiner, Terquavion Smith, D.J. Horne, or D.J. Burns. That's one of the reasons why you have to figure out, at the end of the games, who is playing the best basketball and try to get them involved. That being said, I love our team, but this is one of the groups that, when you say team, we have to be a team to win because we don't have that guy to go over 20 points a game. Obviously, Jon did a great job during the stretch. There was one person that was going to touch the ball at the Wake Forest game, and also here, it was going to be Cooper. We don't have that guy right now.

On what led to Duke’s 19-0 run...

I thought the tables turn a little bit. We probably should have been up seven points at the half. I thought they missed the call when the ball got thrown out of bounds, and it kind of shifted a little bit. Obviously, they came down, they threw it out of bounds, and then they got that three-point play which cut it to four points. I think the momentum shifted. Basketball is a momentum sport. It shifted, and they went into halftime, and then I thought they came out very fired up to start the second half.

On rallying back...

We settled in. I remember the score was 41-37, somewhere in there. We settled in. We knew, on their home floor, that they were going to make some runs, and we just never did. We didn't want the game to get away from us. We relied on our defense. I thought our defense was really good again tonight, but I'm proud of our guys. We scored a little bit better. We shot the ball better than we've done it in the last few games.

On defending Flagg...

Cooper is tough, man. If you put a small guy on him, he's got great size, and he'll take you, so we try to stay with like matchups in this game. We typically would switch one through four, but it's hard to switch against him. Then, we went big. Ben [Middlebrooks] fouled him a couple times. He fouled him on the three-point shot. That's what makes him a good player.

On his message to the team after the game...

We’ve just got to continue to play. We don't take moral victories in this program. We just don't, but we’ve got to continue to get better. The unfortunate thing about us is we got to continue to work, and everybody on this team [knows that]. You listen to the talking heads; they've only got five of us [in the ACC] that's going to make the tournament, and so we all have to continue to get better and continue to work for March. It's an unfortunate thing because I think we've got at least seven, eight, nine teams that I think are tournament-worthy, but we’ve all got to continue to get better, continue to get better, and continue to get better. The one thing I've asked him to do is, “Can we get consistent?” You know, I didn't think Ben played great today. Marcus [Hill] didn't have a great game. Trey did, and Dontrez did. “How can we all get on the same page, and what do you do if you're not scoring the basketball? Are there other things that you can do that we can count on as a staff going into every game?” This guy's really good, but what's your second thing that you can do other than scoring the basketball? Just stay consistent. We got to  stay locked in. Obviously, losing is tough. I think we're playing better. We’ve just got to get over the hump, and we will. I don't know when it'll happen, but we'll get over the hump.

On the best shooting nights coming on the road...

I got to figure it out. We didn't even do a shootaround here. We made shots. Maybe we just won't practice at our own facility anymore. I don't know. Shooting is a confidence thing. We worked the last day because that's all we had in between of being shot-ready. I didn't think we were shot-ready, and most of them, we were standing high and low and then shoot. We weren’t shot-ready. I just think we made shots, and we're not as bad as we've shot the ball over the last two weeks. We made shots today, and we’ve just got to continue to do that.

On Michael O’Connell losing composure in the second half...

I wouldn't call him rattled, not the guy who hit that shot. You can't call him rattled. I just thought the shot clock was running down, and he had to take a shot. Everybody that shoots air balls, you can't call them rattled. I just thought he just missed a couple of shots.