Kevin Keatts: "We Didn't Make Shots At All"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media after the Wolfpack's home loss to Virginia Tech.    

Opening Statement...
Obviously I can’t say that I’ve seen this before. It obviously didn’t go the way we wanted to. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of a game where none of our guys played well.

If  you look at the stat sheet we didn’t shoot well at all. I thought it would get better in the second half, but obviously it didn’t.

One of those games where the ball didn’t go in, we didn’t play great, and certainly we have to try to learn from this, and move on.

On comparing this game to the Boston College game last season where the Pack got off to a slow start offensively but eventually started hitting shots...
No, actually I didn’t even think back to any game from last year. When you look at it, what I told our guys at halftime is that no matter what the score is, and obviously it was 20-14, it could have been 35-29, we were down six. It doesn’t matter when you’re down six, you’re obviously still in the game.

We didn’t have it today for whatever reason.

When you look at these numbers they’re mindboggling... the percentage our guys shot. I thought in the second half, our defense struggled because of our offense. I thought in the first half we just missed shots. I think we gave up some baskets in the second half because we were a little frustrated that we weren’t making shots.

Give those guys credit. I think they did a good job, we just missed a lot of shots that we should have made.

How do you pick your team up after an effort like this game because this hasn’t been the typical effort for your team?
I wouldn’t say effort, I would just say we missed shots. I thought our guys played extremely hard. I thought we missed shots. Here’s the crazy thing, and I am a numbers guy. 47 points to hold a team to is pretty good. The unfortunate thing is we only got 24.

I thought we missed shots, and when you look at the numbers Braxton Beverly hadn’t been shooting it well, but he’s typically not going to go zero for 12. We didn’t make shots at all. We were two for 28 from the three-point line, and obviously it didn’t go in.

As far as effort, I’m proud of the guys. They showed up and competed. It was an off night, and we got to figure out how to not have any more of those.

How do you try to pick them up?
We’ll go back, watch film, go back into the gym and start working on our shots. Obviously we got to move on, and the unfortunate thing is that we don’t have a lot of time. We have a game in a few days that we have to prepare for.

On Virginia Tech’s defense...
I thought their defense was better in the second half. I thought the shots we missed in the first half were more us. We got great looks, and as you guys saw just some of that stuff didn’t go down the rim.

I have no answer to why we didn’t make shots.

I thought in the second half I’d give their defense a little more credit. They were able to close down driving lanes. Of course, when you’re not shooting well, I thought some of the guys lost their confidence as we missed some shots.

Obviously you have to take those shots to try to get back into the game, and it became a snowball effect.

On calling a timeout in the second half after Virginia Tech opened a double-digit lead...
I thought we got tight, and that’s what I was afraid with these guys. I just said, “look you got to rely on your defense.”

At halftime I actually told them to relax and let’s laugh a little. Because I said it’s 20-14. I don’t think Virginia Tech would have ever thought they were just going to score 20 at the half. I know we didn’t think we were going to score just 14.

I said “just relax a little, and go back out there and play.” Then shots didn’t go down.

It was crazy. It was like there was something on the rim.

On Markell Johnson...
I think his timing is off. He’s lost some of his conditioning because of the time he has been off. Obviously he’s not playing well like we want him to because he missed three games. That being said, he missed a lot of practice time. I think his timing is off, and his conditioning is bad right now.

Do you think when you have a shooting game like that it makes guys more hesitant to shoot?
It becomes a trickle down effect. I go back to my opening statement. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a game where I thought every guy on the team played bad.

Typically you’ll say “alright, there is a silver lining, or here’s a positive about it.” You know, you have a guy who plays extremely well.

When you look at these numbers there’s not one guy I thought played well.

Do you watch the tape or flush it?
I am going to watch the tape, unfortunately. In about 30 minutes I am going to re-watch it. With the players, I will decide if I think they should watch it or not. Obviously I want to show them the good things they’ve done.

It’s crazy, I can only imagine seeing it live and then watching it, I am probably going to get frustrated because I thought we had some great looks.

On him keeping the team in the locker room for a long time postgame...
I took a long time to talk to them because I wanted to sit back and replay the game myself. I thought about what happened and what we could have done better. What I kept coming back to was that you have to be able to make shots, and we didn’t.

We talked about a lot of things, especially making shots. It was an off game and it was a bad game. We have got to be able to shake it off and move on.

We talked about some stuff that we have to be able to do better. We have got to win some of the 50/50 balls and those types of things. It was a bunch of things.

We were in there longer just because it took me longer to get in there to talk to them. I talked to them about the same amount of time I usually do.