Kevin Keatts: "We Were Not Ourselves"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 97-73 road loss at North Carolina Wednesday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.
Opening Statement
I’m very, very disappointed in that first half. Obviously, without taking away from what Carolina did — I thought Carolina played really well on their home floor — we got beat to a lot of 50-50, basketballs. When you look at the first half, we gave them seven threes in the first half. We turned the ball over nine times in the first half. What we did, we dug such a huge hole. It was hard to come back. The guys that we played in the second half, I thought they fought, obviously, but when you give up 54 points, and you dig yourself in such a big hole, it's really hard to come back, especially on somebody's floor. We’ve got to build on it. It's hard to win a game when a team plays so well in the first half, and then we're battling back. If you want to look at some bright spots, I thought Paul McNeil came in and played well. I thought both Jayden [Taylor] and Dontrez [Styles] did a great job. We scored 47 points in the second half and fought, but we were so deeply behind, and it took a long time to try to get back in it.
On missed shots on open looks shaking the players’ confidence...
It's a little frustrating. We're getting good shots. Unfortunately for us, some nights, they don't go in, and when they don't, it's so much pressure on our defense. For the first time in a long time, when we started missing the shots, I think it really affected us on the defensive end. I'm not going to take away from Carolina because I thought it played really well in the first half, but a lot of that is we just weren’t ourselves. You guys know this; we take care of the basketball in this program. We had nine [turnovers] at the half and obviously finished with 10.
If he feels embarrassed about this game...
I don't use the word, “embarrassed.” They played better than us. They made more shots than us. They got more rebounds than us. We fought. They won the game. The game was probably won in the first half. Our guys really, really battled in the second half when we had such a deep hole that we had to climb out of it. Are we proud of the way we played in the first half? Absolutely not. We're not embarrassed. We're not proud about how we played. Obviously, we wish we could have played better, but we didn’t.
On the team’s changes defensively...
When you look at it, one of them being is who we play. I told Louisville can really score the basketball. One of the common things in those games is we're giving up threes and transition baskets, and that's what we have been really good at early. If you take away those, teams don't really score a lot on our base, half-court defense. I think our transition and giving up threes is a reason why they scored 90 points.
If the atmosphere attributed to the Tar Heels’ success...
I just think they play well. The atmosphere is only as good as the team plays. When they play well, obviously the fans get involved. It's hard for me to say the atmosphere is better [than usual], but I think the energy in the building was good because of the way they played in the first half.
On Styles’ comments about this loss feeling the worst...
I'm glad they feel that way because I do. In our program, we have shared responsibility. You're never going to see me walk into a press conference and blame it on the players. If anything, I'll take the blame myself, but I'm glad that they feel that way because, obviously, we’ve got to go back to work and figure it out. Obviously, when you look at it, we’ve got five regular season games, and you have to take one at a time, obviously [starting on] Saturday. I don't want guys to, after a game, feel great, even if it's a two-point game. There are some things that we can do better. The things we're going to get better in, we'll get better. We'll work on it.
On the biggest disconnect for this season...
This team doesn't have any superstars. We’ve got really good players, and I love my players, but in fairness, there is no Jarkel Joiner, Terquavion Smith, D.J. Horne, and D.J. Burns. What I mean by that is guys that can go on and average 17, 18 points a game. We have a bunch of really good players, which I knew from the start, and I love them. I think they're all really good people. They're fighting their butts off. The disconnect is when we don't play together with this particular group because we don't have that one or two guys that can take a game over. When we're not on the same page and we don't play good basketball together, then we really struggle. Hence, when we start playing together, we’re a really good basketball team. Does NIL have something to do with that? Absolutely. All you’ve got to do is take a look at the top five teams in the league and somehow find their numbers. It'll tell you a story, but I'm not going to make excuses about that because, obviously [in] our program, we fight hard, and we compete. The biggest difference is this group, this version of NC State, we have to play together to be really good.
On his preference in the ACC Championship Tournament format...
It's not my call. I don't know. I guess the easy answer is I could say yes [to a format which features every team], and here's why I could say yes: because I also believe that there should be more than 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament. The answer is yes, but that's not my call.