Keatts: "We're Not Doing Everything Great"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media after the Wolfpack's 85-57 win over Saint Peter's.
Opening Statement...
I want to tell everybody happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time and if you have the chance to spend some time with your family, that’s important. Don’t ever take that for granted.
I thought we came out in the first half and played extremely well. Obviously, we’ve talked about defending and there was a 12 or 13 minute stretch where I thought we did a great job defending those guys. I’m proud of my team because in these five games leading into Thanksgiving, we have played extremely hard.
We’re not doing everything great. As a coach, I can find things we need to work on. Because we’re a young group as far as maturity and playing together, I’m trying to work these guys up to being able to play 40 minutes a game.
The human element is when you come out and you play so well in the first half that when you look up at the score, we have to have a better second half. There are no concerns on my end. I’m happy with the guys. They’ll have tomorrow off and those who are close by will get a chance to spend a little time with their family and we’ll have a Thanksgiving dinner for the team on Thursday. We’ll enjoy it and get ready for Saturday.
On starting the game 9 of 11 from long range...
When you look at it-- and someone can correct me if I’m wrong-- we started the game with 16 assists on maybe 18 made field goals. That was very, very good. We shared the basketball. For the game we had 20 assists on 27 made field goals. I think we shared the ball and we got good shots. We’ve talked about passing up good shots for great shots. I thought our guys did a great job of sharing the ball.
On defense...
I thought we did well. I would love to know how many deflections we had for the game. I thought our guys did well. Guys are in the passing lane and guys are playing hard. Our style of play is tough because we pick you up 94 feet the entire game and you’ve got to be in incredible shape to do that. It’s a work in progress. As I told you, I think we can play probably 32 or 33 minutes of it, but we’re going to work our way up to where we can play longer stretches.
On Jericole Hellems...
I’m not ready to call him the microwave yet, but he can score off the bench. He’s a talented freshman and he works hard. He deserves to play well.
What I like about him is his ability to shoot behind the three-point line, his ability to put the ball on the floor, and his ability to rebound the basketball. He gives us a guy off the bench that can really score the basketball.
The great thing about it is I think the officials were trying to help both teams out because all three big guys ended up with two fouls early. I think that was a great thing because we were able to put Jericole at the five and then just switch all screens.
There will be situations where we’ll play that way, believe it or not, throughout the season. He’s a little bit dangerous on the offensive end. We ran a play for him and he nailed a three. I looked like a good coach because I called it for my center who is not a center.
On playing a complete game...
That’s something we talked about at the end of the game. As you know, there is no team in college basketball right now that has put 40 minutes of basketball together. The times that we have played well, we have played really, really well. I'm proud of these guys and how hard they’ve competed in the times that we’ve played well.
On being dialed in from long range...
I think it’s important we’re shooting the ball with confidence. On the season we’re shooting the ball with confidence. If you’re going to be a good shooting team, you have to be a great passing team. If you look at every team that shoots the ball well, they're good passers. We're starting to pass the ball well.
Thank you, guys. Happy Thanksgiving to you.