Kevin Keatts: "We Just Didn't Do a Great Job Defensively"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 91-66 loss to Louisville Wednesday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference. An abbreviated transcript is provided below.
Opening Statement
Normally, I would come in here and talk about how our defense has really kept us in a lot of games, but I didn’t think it was very good tonight. We didn't do a good job understanding scouting reports. We knew Louisville was a great shooting team — not a good shooting team, but a great one. Obviously, we gave up 11 threes ,and they were 11-of-19. We just had too many breakdowns defensively. We have been in every game because our defense has really kept us in games, and tonight was a one-off. I hope it’s a one-off. I just didn’t think we did a great job on the defensive end, and maybe it’s the travel, but give Louisville credit. It's a team that can really space you out and does a great job at shooting the basketball. But I didn't like the way we played on that side of the basketball.
On the team's performance tonight...
My issue is [that] we get Brandon [Huntley-Hatfield] who plays hard and gives us seven offensive rebounds, but when you look at the stat sheet, there's some other guys who you expect to play well and help the team who just don’t. If you could give us one label, I would say we are very inconsistent in our play. That being said, I thought our young guys were really good. If you want one bright spot, I thought Trey Parker is getting better. Paul McNeil, Jr. made some shots. We just didn't do a great job defensively this game. I would say the last game that we played where we didn’t play well defensively was BYU. They shot the basketball a lot, and they shot it early. We had a couple of careless turnovers that happened early, and from there, we just never really established ourselves.
On the younger guys getting minutes...
I thought they have been great. They don’t do everything right, but they compete, and I like that part of it. They are starting to turn the corner in practice. It takes freshmen a long time to get there, and right now, they are starting to turn the corner, so I was very happy with them. Trey Parker’s minutes have been going up every single game that we play, and I hope it continues to be that way. We haven’t seen the best basketball from Bryce Heard, but I think he’s going to do some of the same things the other guys are doing.
On inconsistency in the past few games...
It’s frustrating. If you remember and go back to anything I have ever said about this team, it’s that we need each other. You look at the game now and say, “Well, Trey Parker and Paul McNeil, Jr. played great,” but you go back a week or two, and you need to look at, “Who else?” We can throw a dart and see who played well in each game: Dontrez [Styles] played well, then Marcus [Hill] played well. That has been our major issue thus far is; we don’t have consistent play from anybody. That’s the toughest part about all of this; we need some of our older guys to take us to the finish line. Paul and Trey shouldn’t have to be put in that position.