KEATTS: "It's A Great Night"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack’s 84-64 win over Wake Forest Friday evening.
NOTE: Click the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.
Opening Statement
“It’s a great night, and it’s a great night because we won, but it’s also a great night to be able to send our seniors away with a win. I’m very proud of those guys. When you think of C.J. Bryce, he’s been with me for five years, and rarely in college basketball do you get a chance to have a guy stick around you for five years, I don’t even know how he did it, to be around me five years anyway. I’m proud of his journey. He started off at UNCW with me and I knew when I signed him he was a hot major guy, and then obviously I had the opportunity to take this job here and when he decided to leave I knew I didn't want to play against him so we got involved with him and I’m glad he’s decided to come to NC State and he’s done a great job with us for a couple of years. Markell Johnson, obviously everybody knows he’s had his ups and downs but what I will say about him is he didn’t take bad advice. A lot of young men, especially guys we’ve had here in the program in the past, have decided to jump to the NBA when they weren’t ready. Markell is a guy who took the negative feedback and the positive feedback and decided to come back to NC State. He’s had two years under his belt where he’s probably going to lead the league in assists. His game has matured. He’s still getting better in areas. Those two fifth year guys, Danny [Dixon] and Pat [Andree], they could’ve gone anywhere in the country and they trusted in us as we decided to build this program and that says a lot about those guys. We’ve had a lot of success with those fifth year guys, and I’m proud of those guys because both of those guys represent our program as a culture and as students. That being said, great game. I thought we did a tremendous job tonight. One of my concerns coming into the game was keeping Wake Forest off the free throw line. They are a team that takes 25 free throws a game, and when you look at the stat sheet, we did a great job only giving them seven free throws. Our guys played well. It was really good to see the ball go in the hole for Braxton Beverly. We needed it and he needed it. I think our team understands what kind of player he can be. Markell Johnson was really good with another double-double and I thought D.J. Funderburk played great for us. Danny and those guys that came off the bench did a tremendous job for us tonight.”
On Manny Bates’ injury
“Manny [Bates] has got a little knee bruise. I wanted him to go through warm-ups today just to see how he felt. At the end of the day he probably could’ve played, but I wanted to hold him out. It was senior night, so I knew I was starting Danny. I knew Danny was going to be in the rotation. I wanted to be cautious with him because we need him more with the tournament coming up. He should be fine. Actually Joe, what’s the crazy thing is that he hurt himself to get hurt. I don’t even think anyone bumped into him.”
On Braxton Beverly’s injury
“It’s not even that type of injury. He’s just beat up. If someone gave me the power to tell Braxton Beverly to not play basketball for three weeks I would do it. But I know Braxton Beverly. As soon as I get away from him, he’s going to sneak somewhere and play basketball just because he loves the game. That kid is a weapon for us, and he’s a guy who can score. We need him to make those types of shots. We missed some of that, but his ability to make shots makes us a better team. Hopefully, he can continue that and play well. I’ve got to do a better job. I’ve done a bad job in that area-- I need to limit him at practice. But it’s tough when he’s sitting over there and he wants to get in everytime. But I have to do a better job in that area.”
On ACC and NCAA Tournament balance
“I think we can accomplish both by getting a win, and obviously by winning the ACC Tournament. As you win I think that improves your resume. I think we have a chance. I would never only talk about the NCAA and having that chance because I think it puts too much pressure on it. Our goal is to win every game and have a chance to win the tournament. So I think we’ll talk about winning the tournament next game and by doing so it helps your resume for the NCAA Tournament.”
On the team’s depth
“I think a lot of that has to do with that we have depth. We wore down, and we did what we used to do to teams. We wore down because we just didn’t have much depth. I was going for guys for a long amount of time. Even if you look at tonight it’s crazy. We still don’t have everyone with Manny out. With that being said, we still had enough guys to play and play how we wanted to finish the game.”
On Danny Dixon
“Danny didn’t accidentally get here as a fifth year. I know a lot of people who look at fifth years who play at a lower division one school say they can’t help you. But he’s played a lot of basketball, and in some respects he’s a better player at our level than at some of those lower division ones because they usually have those 6’6” post guys. He’s had some good practices the last couple days. I texted him on my way here and his way here and told him “just be confident, you’re a good basketball player.” And I think he played well.”
On wins and losses earlier in the season
“For our resume for the NCAA, when Joe and I talked earlier today, we answered some of the questions or the concerns that the committee had before. Some people would argue it was our strength of schedule in the non-conference. And I get it, it was bad, but we finished in the top 100 non-conference. Some people would argue that we didn’t have enough quality quad-one wins. We’re sitting on four quad-one wins, and I think today this was another quad-two win. That being said, I like where our team’s at. I am never going to be able to sit in the committee room and make those decisions. If you take the resumes and stick them up together, you say NC State has a win against Wisconsin who has a chance to win the regular season in the Big 10. You say they went to Syracuse and won, we have won at Virginia, who turned out to be a great win, and then we beat No. 6 Duke at PNC Arena. Those are pretty good wins.
“I don’t think all quad-ones are created equal. Nothing against any other conference, but I would love to have some quad-one wins playing against some lesser teams than playing a Duke, a Wisconsin, a Virginia and a Syracuse. That just doesn’t happen. We went on the road to a midmajor opponent and won at Greensboro, which nobody does. Arkansas-Little Rock, for those who don’t know, that turned out to be a great win. I just gave a great speech about why we should be in the tournament! I don’t know what the NET is. I only know that the NET is not the only one tool they use. I hope they go back to the eye test. The times we’ve played on national television, we look pretty good.”
On Wake Forest scouting
“They confuse you with their match-up zone. We wanted to get some movement into a ball screen to pull their post guy out of the lane. So what we did was we tried to space them out and have two shooters opposite of the ball handler so when we came up and set ball screens, as long as we used it they typically stayed home at the shooters side, our roll guy was always open. Markell did a great job finding D.J. and Danny, and those guys finished.”