Kevin Keatts: "Our Guys Did A Tremendous Job"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts fielded questions from the media after the Wolfpack's 73-58 win over Pittsburgh in the 2020 ACC Tournament.

Opening Statement...
I'll start. I thought our guys did a tremendous job of -- let's give Pitt a lot of credit. I think what Jeff is doing there in his second year is really good. Obviously it's tough as we've seen in our program to continue to build a culture and a program. That being said, I thought our guys in the second half, we won the game because we completely defended better than we did in the first. We started off well and then at the end of the half, certainly because we stopped making shots, we stopped defending.

Some of the keys to our game and our success today was we were able to get out in transition. We were able to make some shots. We were able to get some player and ball movement against the zone, and certainly that helped us get a win.

These guys here and the guys in the locker room did a tremendous job. It's always tough playing your first game, even though you're playing against a team that played the day before and they may be a little bit tired, but obviously that first game is always tough in the tournament, and I thought our guys did a tremendous job and we can obviously survive and advance.

The NCAA just came out with another statement saying they're now recommending against games being played with the public in attendance. I'm not asking you guys to be epidemiologists, but what's your reaction to the eventuality of playing in empty stadiums?
I don't think these guys are ready to answer that. I'll take that if you want me to take it, but I don't think they're prepared to answer that question. Look, we've got to -- it's a serious problem, and it's not an athletic problem. It's a problem all across the country, and so I don't think anybody here or anybody in the sports world should obviously complain about what the people that know what's going on will decide to do.

In our situation, we'll play wherever they tell us, but we also want to make sure that our kids and our coaches are all protected and are safe. I don't really have a true answer other than I'm not the smartest guy when it comes to this. I'm going to listen to the people that's above us, and wherever they tell us to go, wherever they tell us to play, or if it's fans or not fans, we'll do it.

Kevin, was it good to see the zone today to prepare you for tomorrow, or will Mike play 3D chess and come out and play man tomorrow?
You know, it's crazy because I told our guys that I figured that if we played Wake or Pitt, there's an opportunity for us to play against the zone, and the reason being is because in a tournament situation, when you play the day before, you don't have time to really go over people's sets. You don't want to go on the floor because you don't want to take people's legs.

So our anticipation is that we're going to see some zone from everybody that we play as we continue to advance.

But it was good to see it. I thought in the first half we were non-aggressive towards when they went to the zone, and we talked about at halftime continuing to drive and ball screening, and we got shots, and then we talked about offensive rebounding and I thought we did a good job.

So it was good to see it. I have no idea what they're going to play tomorrow. I anticipate that we're going to see some zone and some man-to-man.

One of the things that hurt you when they went to the zone last time was their ability to get out on the break. I think they got 25 fast break points. Thoughts about your transition defense heading into this game?
Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think one of the things that hurt us when they went to the zone, we didn't make shots. Like we got wide-open shots. When I went back and watched the tape, we didn't make shots.

That being said, because we didn't make shots is where this team has to get better and grow because sometimes -- and we're not the only ones around the country, when you don't score, typically your defense struggles. We gave them run-outs, we gave them offensive rebounds, we didn't rely on our defense. When we keep people in the half court, we're very productive on the defensive end. But I didn't like it, you're right. We gave up 25 points in transition. We have to be way better. They're one of the better transition teams in the country.

Champagnie for Pitt, he had 31 yesterday, you held him to just nine today on 4 of 13 shooting. Was there a conscious effort to a certain way you wanted to defend or attack him or force him into certain things?
No, he's a good player. He played a great game yesterday, and we just concentrated on defending the way we did. I sit there and watched him, I was proud -- I did tell our guys that he had 31 yesterday and played great. But I thought we did a really good job not just on him but most of their guards, forcing them into tough shots. Even the shots they made were tough shots.