Keatts: "I Guess We've Got To Stop Fouling"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts answered questions from the Wolfpack's radio crew following the Wolfpack's 84-77 loss at Louisville.

23 turnovers, they scored 37 off those turnovers. Are you perplexed by that?
Yeah, certainly. I thought we did a poor job of following the scouting report with our players. We drove into situations where we turned the ball over. We had about six charges. We didn’t make the extra play or the extra pass to make the play.

So I’m very disappointed on that effort. I thought we played extremely hard. I thought we had our chances to win the game, but any time you turn the ball over 23 times and give the team 37 points off turnovers, you put yourself in a bad situation to win.

Did a lot of those turnovers create momentum play for them?
Yeah, it wasn’t us. When we’re a guard down, we’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the basketball. We had a spurt where I thought we turned it over three or four times in a row.

It was bad. For us, a team who has, in my opinion, done a good job of taking care of the basketball, I thought we did an awful job tonight.

You tied the game at 65, did you feel you confident in your team at that point?
Absolutely. I go back to it anytime that you put yourself in a situation to win the game. Obviously, we had some costly turnovers.

Give Louisville credit. I thought they played extremely hard. It was a great game. I thought the difference in the game was that they were able to get to the free throw line a lot more than we were, and certainly we turned the ball over too much.

Through five ACC games you’re minus 60 at the free throw line.  How do you deal with that?
I guess we’ve got to stop fouling. It looks and appears that we’re fouling too much, and I guess we’ve got to do a better job of not fouling.

Were you relieved to see Braxton make some shots tonight?
Yeah, I thought Braxton stepped in and made some shots. It was good to see the ball go in for him. I thought we played extremely hard, as I told the guys in the locker room, but the bottom line is that any time the other team gets to the free throw line that much and you turn it over that much, it’s hard to win, especially playing on somebody’s floor.

You play another good ACC team in less than 40 hours. How do you approach that?
All the teams are good, and it’s the ACC. We’ve got to get back, we’ve got to get some rest, we’ve got to prepare tomorrow, and we’ve just got to shake it off and get ready to play.