Kevin Keatts: Manny Bates Will Be A Game-Time Decision
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts fielded questions from the media today where he updated the status of Manny Bates, discussed Clemson, and much more!
Opening Statement...
In this league you can obviously beat anybody, but certainly you can lose to anybody when obviously there's no home court advantage.
When you look at the way we played, I think we've got some veteran guys that are playing really good basketball. Then I've been able to add in really a couple of freshmen that I thought have stood out for us so far, one being Shakeel Moore and the other being Cam Hayes, both of those guys are playing really good basketball.
Once again, guys, we're fortunate and excited just to have the opportunity to play. We don't take it for granted.
What is Manny Bates’ status for the game against Clemson?
He's going to be a game-time decision.
We've been very careful with him the last few days. We took off the day after the BC game and then we did individual workouts. We've got him in some workouts without having a lot of contact right now.
I'm going to evaluate him pretty much after we go through our shootaround tomorrow at Clemson. Hopefully he plays, because we're a very different team with him on the floor because he starting to score offensively, but a lot of easy baskets around the rim, he's either blocking those shots or altering those shots. So it changes who we are a lot with him not on the floor.
His MRI and X-rays were both negative, but he's extremely sore... more of a hyperextension of his knee probably.
Did you guys know about Shakeel Moore for a while or did you notice him while recruiting Josh Hall?
We've recruited Shakeel for a long time. I've always felt like he was probably the most underrated guard in the state and the country. We knew exactly what we were getting from him... just tough, hard-nosed. I've always described him as probably could be the best on-ball defender in our league after a couple years.
Give our staff a lot of credit. He came in without the reputation as a guy who can make outside shots. We put a lot of work into them and Shak has put in a lot of work.
Guys miss on rankings all the time. I’ve made a living, with some guys who probably should have been a top 75 guy. Shak wasn’t highly ranked, but we knew what type of player we were getting.
What does it say about him that, with all those upperclassmen on the floor, not only he wanted to take that shot, but made that shot to beat BC?
Well, he's tough. To be honest with you, I don't even know that he knew he took the shot when he took the shot, meaning that 24 seconds in the game, most people would have gotten tight. We were down one, we needed a big basket, and he was the guy to step up and make the shot.
He's another guy that we've been able to dip into a prep school and get a guy who's ready to play right away. If you look back, I know he seems like he's been here for 10 years, but if you look back three years ago from now, and that was Braxton Beverly... coming out of Hargrave Military Academy. He came in as a freshman and started alongside Markell Johnson.
Shakeel Moore and Cam Hayes are both starters on this team, but I want to make sure they get a chance to see the flow of the game and then have a chance to come in and play.
The NET rankings came out and you’re No. 38. A big reason is you took that Saint Louis game on. How much did you think about that when you took that game?
Looks like you're trying to start something for all of the people who said I shouldn't have went on the road and played at Saint Louis.
We knew Saint Louis was going to be a quality team, especially on their home floor. Also, they're going to be picked and may win the Atlantic 10, which is obviously doing really well this year.
We're glad that we played the game. If we don't play that game, we're probably not sitting here right now at 2-0 in our conference.
We had to find the best opponent that we could find at the time and go play them, and it was Saint Louis. I'm very grateful. You hate to learn a lot about your team in a loss, you would much rather to do it in a win, but we learned so much about our team in the loss.
How big is the Clemson game to continue building the resume?
It's big because it's our third ACC opponent, and we have a chance with some success to be 3-0. It’s been a long time since NC State was 3-0.
Obviously Clemson's a very good basketball team. Simms is having a tremendous year. When you look at those guys on tape, they believe in each other and play for one another. They're coming together as a unit, and it will be a really, really tough challenge to play those guys on their home floor, but we're excited about our opportunity,
You talked in the Carolina game about how important it was slowing down Garrison Brooks. Is that a similar mindset with Simms in this game with Clemson? Do you feel like they are similar players?
They're similar, but they're much, much different.
This doesn't take away from Garrison Brooks who is really good and has been great against NC State, but when you look at Simms, what makes him so tough is his ability to step behind the three-point line. He's a pick-and-pop five in their system. Both of those guys in their own right, are two of the best posts that we have in our league, but Simms is a different challenge.
We knew going into the Carolina game, Brooks had dominated us inside, but he's done it in a different way. He's been tremendous on the offensive glass and has really hurt us. Simms is a little different because he does it in all different ways. He can pick and pop. He can drive. They sometimes put him to the elbow when they go to their Princeton offense. He's one of those guys who does a little bit of everything for their team. In order for us to have a successful game, we've got to slow him down again. You're never going to stop or contain a guy like that. You just don't want him to have a great night and get everybody else involved.
You didn’t have DJ for the Carolina game. Does that give you a different [look] for Clemson, having him available as well?
I hope so. That’s providing we have DJ and Manny. It seems like right now we could be trading both of those guys off at times, but certainly any time you get a guy who's a senior who's played in this league for a couple of years, for him to come back off not playing since December 3rd… it says a lot about DJ.
Are you more or less optimistic than you may have been in October about college basketball getting to the finished line?
That’s the million dollar question.
I don’t know what is going to happen. It’s unfortunate for our country and around the world; the virus seems like it’s taken over a little more. I wish we had extra time. Do I feel like we should pause right now? I’m not at that point right now, but I do wish we had more time to get more games in because there will be cancellations.
I do like our guys [being] together. I do think if we sent our guys out separately and they were not playing basketball, I think it would affect them more than now. We’re getting tested at a high level, at least three times a week, and in what we consider a bubble. It’s not a perfect bubble, but it’s without students on campus, other than a few sports teams.
If we knew the tournament was going to be played in May, all of these games canceled, we could figure out how to play them. If you look at our football team, we were able to play 11 or 12 games, but we also had two or three bye weeks in for cancellations.
If we had two months or another month and a half, I don’t know if it would be a big deal (the cancellations) because we’d have time to reschedule them. I wish we could look at that.
Are you wearing the tracers to track contact tracing and social distancing?
Yes, we use them.
We think it’s important. Contact tracing is one of the biggest reasons a lot of these games aren’t happening. I’m glad we’re wearing them at NC State because the safety of our kids and staff is the main thing. If somebody does happen to be positive, we can now go back and look at the data and determine how much you were around them. Then we can make the determination of if we need to pause as a team or sit that individual out.
I’m excited about that because without it, there would be a lot of guesswork. Before we had it, we had to go back and look at game tape or practice tape to see who was around... we had trainers using stop watches and that’s not the ideal way to figure this out.
Have you been wearing them all season?
We wore them the next game after Saint Louis. We didn’t have them for Saint Louis, but after we got them in, charged, and ready to go we’ve been wearing them since then.