Kevin Keatts: 'You want it to be clicking in March'
NC State men’s basketball stayed red hot Wednesday night, topping Notre Dame 80-69 on the road for its fifth straight win overall and fifth straight on the road. Depending on a potential makeup for Saturday’s cancelation against Virginia Tech, it could have been the Pack’s last regular season game.
There was plenty for Kevin Keatts to be happy about, including 45 combined points from the freshman guard trio of Cam Hayes, Shakeel Moore and Dereon Seabron. Keatts spoke to the media after the game, here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say:
Opening statement
I’m pumped. Our team played extremely well on the road again. I’m proud of these guys. They have fought. I’ll take you guys back to when we were 4-8. This team had every reason, every opportunity just to kind of lay down a little bit and make some excuses about we weren’t winning. Instead, they have battled and we’ve kind of flipped this thing around. In that stretch, we’ve won five road games and four in a row. I’m so proud of these guys.
I thought we did a tremendous job today following the scouting report. When you look at it, I thought Dereon Seabron was really, really good. He had a career-high 17 points and 13 rebounds, same as Cam Hayes. When you look at our games, we’re finding ways to win. Last game it was the veterans. This game, I thought our young guys came out and played well. And Shak Moore, even though he didn’t have a lot of points, he played well also. So I’m happy where we’re at. It’s tough to win in this league, but in this league to go on the road and win five consecutive games, that’s tough. So I’m proud of our guys.
How did you guys transform the last five games to go on this winning streak?
We never stopped believing. Those guys never stopped believing. I told you, I said this before, we did a couple things that we haven’t done in a long time. We went to playing more four-minute games in practice. Obviously this time of year, you don’t want to go a long time. So I think it’s helped our younger guys be able to adapt to game-time situations.
I think our biggest adjustment is we stopped turning the ball over. When you go back to the Syracuse and Duke games, we didn’t give ourselves an opportunity to win because we turned the ball over. When you look at the last few games that we played, we’ve been under 10 turnovers a game. And our guys are bought in. It took us a little time to get us a different identity, we didn’t know how we were going to play, but our guys made a great adjustment and we started playing the game inside out. Good things started happening for us. I think the biggest adjustment is, when you look at us, we’ve become more solid on the defensive end. We’ve done a good job of sitting down and guarding people now.
Did the final game against Virginia Tech getting canceled give you guys an extra spark?
One hundred percent not at all. I don’t have the type of team that I can talk about a game on Saturday going into a game today. So I haven’t mentioned a word to them. Now, I’m smart. I know they’re all on social media, so I’m sure they’ve seen it, but I didn’t say a word to them. I don’t think with these kids, we need the motivation of saying ‘This is possibly your last game.’ We’re just playing good basketball right now.
Did you expect a comeback performance like this from your freshmen after the game against Pittsburgh?
I would be lying to you if I told you I knew Cam Hayes and Seabron would both have career highs. But they both have prepared the right way. I think both of those guys and [Shakeel Moore], I think all of those guys realized they didn’t have their best performances. Those guys have such a pride about them. That was good. It was good to see them have the ball go in. It was good to see them play aggressive. I just think they all wanted it more than they did the last game. When you’re young, you realize how hard you have to compete every game, and I think that was a wakeup call for those guys, because we won a game against Pittsburgh that was a grind-it-out game, without any guard playing well other than Braxton Beverly.
How has the adversity that you guys have had to overcome and this five-game winning streak made you a better coach?
Forget about the basketball part for a second. Just what’s going on in our country has made me a better understanding of everything that’s happened in the world, the patience and what I have realized is you don’t know how good you have it until you hear someone else’s story. So I’ve been locked in trying to figure out. This is entertainment for us. What I mean by that is we’re blessed to be able to put our guys out on the floor in which they want to play, and to help someone else get through their day.
So for me, I’ve learned a lot of patience and I had to get a lot of patience from basketball because I’m playing younger guys. But, at the end of the day, it’s bigger than just basketball. When you look at everything that’s happening for almost a year now, it’s tough. So I try to keep everything in perspective. I’m more humble than I’ve ever been. Not that I wasn’t humble, but I understand that we’ve got great opportunities and our guys are playing their hearts out for themselves, their family and the university.
How much do you feel like this team has enough momentum to compete in the ACC Tournament?
I like the way we’re playing. Right now, we could make the argument that we’re playing just as good as anybody in the ACC. Certainly when you’re playing well, you want to continue to play. I think our guys are bought in. They are understanding that and it’s finally clicking. When it’s clicking, you want it to be clicking in March. That’s where we are right now. I know we’re going to get a million questions about Saturday. We’ll evaluate everything in the next couple of days, we’ll talk to the ACC and we’ll figure out if there’s an opportunity or if there’s not an opportunity and we’ll make the best situation.
It seems like the freshmen have played better on the road? Is the ice cream more of a motivating factor?
They’re young, so I don’t know. You’ve got young kids, you tell me. When you pull out that ice cream, it’s always good. It could be a lot of different things. Maybe it’s the distractions. Maybe it’s ice cream. Maybe they just like playing in different venues. But that being said, I think they’ve had some tremendous games at home too. We love PNC. It was so unbelievable just to have the few fans that we had at the last game. So we just love playing basketball on the road or at home.
What are some of the specific ways that you’ve seen these freshmen grow?
They’ve matured in a lot of ways. We would turn the ball over, we would fall down. We would do freshman things. And it’s not a fault of their own, it’s just that they were thrown into a situation that they weren’t ready for at the time. I think ball security’s the number one thing. Defensive is the second thing, because they all had been liabilities on the defensive end. The biggest thing is they’re starting to believe in this team and themselves.
How rewarding is the win streak? How are you feeling right now?
I feel great. You think about that we had a heck of a February and not so good of a January. It’s a great feeling. Winning is a great thing. I told the team, ‘When you win, everything’s better.’ Our guys feel good about themselves. They’re doing a tremendous job in all areas because of that. I’m happy with where the team’s at. Obviously we don’t feel like we’re done. We’ve got work to do. We’ve just got to figure out what’s our next game, if it’s a Saturday opportunity, or do we try and take this momentum into the ACC Tournament?
What has helped with putting Dereon Seabron in the starting lineup? You guys have gone from one of the smallest starting lineups to one of the biggest now.
I’ll tell you what happened. I was watching when we were preparing for Pittsburgh the first time, and I’m watching the game in the tournament from last year. I looked out there and we had Markell Johnson at 6-1, we had C.J. Bryce at 6-5, we had Devon Daniels at 6-5, [Jericole Hellems], [Manny Bates] and [D.J. Funderburk]. I said ‘God, it’s tough, because we’re rolling out there now, we’ve got really good players.’ We’ve got Braxton, who he says he’s 6-1, we list him at 6-1, so that’s our fault. We’ve got Thomas Allen, who’s a really good player also, he’s 6-1. So we went really small. And our situation, because of Braxton not being all that healthy and not being able to practice, and Thomas Allen going through his injuries, it allowed me to experiment with a little bigger lineup. And it’s kind of worked for us. I’m proud of Seabron, I’m proud of Cam, because they both have gotten better on the defensive end. Good things happen to you when you play defense. That’s when they both scored.
If you guys make a deep run in the ACC Tournament, is there an argument for you guys to make the NCAA Tournament?
You’re not going to get me into that argument today. I’ve got no control over that. Kevin Keatts didn’t say the NET, he didn’t say anything about that. We’re going to take it one game at a time, obviously I don’t get to make those decisions, all we can do is try to win games.