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NC State Basketball

Kevin Keatts: "We Were Playing Good Basketball"

March 8, 2021
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NC State men’s basketball carries a five-game winning streak into this week’s ACC Tournament in Greensboro. The Wolfpack will look to carry that momentum into Wednesday’s 8-9 matchup against Syracuse as it tries to make a deep run in this tournament. 

Kevin Keatts spoke to the media Monday morning about his team’s hopes, here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say:


What do you think went into Syracuse beating you guys twice? 

I think they played better. When you look at the first game up there, I thought we had our opportunities. That was one of those games we were coming without Devon Daniels, and then we found out that D.J. Funderburk wasn’t going to be available for the game. But they made shots. When you look at them, I think we scored enough points to win both games, but at the end of the day, they’ve outscored us. One of those games, we turned the ball over anywhere from 18 to 20 times a game. They’ve shot an unbelievable percentage against us in the last couple games. Give them credit. They’ve outplayed us and won the game, and made plays down the stretch.

Do you miss wearing suits?

That’s been a hot topic lately. It’s weird, because I first saw it at the Pitt game, because I like to go back when we’re playing teams and watch last year’s games at times, too. We looked so out of place when we were wearing suits. It was funny. It was weird. I thought I would miss it, but I don’t right now. I’m not saying we should never wear suits again. I’m not saying that at all. But I am saying it’s weird. I would love for one of you guys to tell me how it started, when basketball coaches inside wore suits. I don’t know how it started. And it’s a good thing. I love my suits. I’ve got a lot of really nice suits. But I don’t miss it right now. Maybe I will over the summer and say ‘Man, I can’t wait to get back into suits.’ But I do not miss it at this moment right now.

Heading into the tournament, a lot of people feel like you guys need to win it all to get to the NCAA. Having been in a one-bid league at UNC-Wilmington, having to win it all to get into the NCAA Tournament in that league, what can you draw from that? 

That was nerve-wracking. My last year, I think we had 29 wins at Wilmington and we were playing in the championship game. And if we didn’t win the tournament, we were going to go to the NIT, and it was tough. How can that help? I’m not sure if that helps at all. It’s a different league. In any tournament situation, a lot of that stuff comes down to whatever matchup you get. And the way I can help these guys is for us just to concentrate on Syracuse, figure out how to beat those guys and then if we’re fortunate to get a win, then concentrate on the next team. That’s the only way that I have ever approached it. Most of those tournaments, two of those three that I was Wilmignton, we went in as a number one or number two seed, so it was a little bit different. This one here, I don’t think any team in our league is comfortable saying ‘How do we win the tournament?’ I think you win one game and then figure out how to get to the next one.

What does it mean to you and the sport that there is an NCAA Tournament this season?

I think it’s a beautiful thing, because the NCAA set the minimum games at 13, which makes me think that nobody thought we could play as many games. In our situation, we’ve been fortunate to get to 22. We played 17 conference games. We’re blessed to even have this tournament. I think in the back of my mind, I remember last year after winning the Pittsburgh game, how the tournament was taken away. I just didn’t want this not to happen this year, because I think every kid in this conference worked hard to be able to play in the tournament. 

And then obviously, when you talk about the NCAA Tournament, which I’ve been fortunate to be around, it’s a really unique, unbelievable experience. I know it’ll be a little bit different experience than it’s been in the past, but I think it’s the greatest event in sports. So by them doing a great job, we’re prepared to host it, it will go off, I think it’s a great thing.

Manny Bates was named to the All-Defensive team this morning. What is his impact on the defensive side of the ball?

He’s a game changer. I was one of those guys that was really disappointed last year that he didn’t even make the All-Defensive team. I’m happy that people around this conference, those who get a chance to vote, realize what a game changer he is. He allows our guards to make mistakes. Sometimes he sacrifices his ability to stay on the floor because he blocks so many shots. But we always talk about the ones he blocked, but we don’t talk about the ones he altered. People are always looking over their shoulder. I’m ecstatic for him. I’m happy for him. 

I wish he would have got defensive player of the year. That’s not to take away from Alvarado, who I think led our league in steals. That being said, I’m excited about the player that he’s become. Coming out of high school, I knew he was a tremendous shot blocker. But I didn’t know he was going to be the same shot blocker after having two surgeries. I think that’s what makes it so special, because this guy had two shoulder surgeries and is still blocking shots at a high rate. He’s the best shot blocker that I’ve ever been around.

Jericole Hellems was named honorable mention with his efforts down the stretch. How big has he been for this team getting back on track after losing Devon Daniels?

He’s been huge. Once again, we’re always blessed that others around recognize our guys. I’m excited for him also. He’s what you want in a guy that’s been in your program his freshman year, sophomore year, junior year. When you take his numbers and you see how he’s improved, I give a lot of credit to him and also our staff. During this five-game stretch, and even more for Jeircole, he’s stepped up and he’s been tremendous for us. We wouldn’t be here with nine wins if it wasn’t for his play.

You guys had a senior day in Reynolds. How did the decision-making process go for that, and how much did it mean to you to be able to do something to honor those guys even though that game was canceled?

It took a lot of people to pull it off. One of them is Meghan Fitzgerald, who has obviously taken another job. Fred Demarest, [Craig Hammel] and their staff did a tremendous job to make this thing happen. But it was special to me. There was no way that I was not going to let these guys be celebrated on senior day. It’s crazy, because we did it at Reynolds, and one of the reasons we did it at Reynolds is because we wanted to be able to have the big screen where we could play some videos from their parents, I thought that was really special. But man, it’s crazy, nobody was in the stands, but it was still really emotional. 

When you’ve been around some guys for three to four years, you grow a bond. You’ve yelled at them, you’ve coached them. You’ve seen them get better. You’ve seen them mature. To me, I was still emotional about it, because we’ve got three young men who have all had a different path, who are all going to graduate. That typically doesn’t happen. All have been really good for NC State. All three of those guys came to me basically without me even playing or coaching my first game. That meant something to me. Braxton Beverly, I didn’t realize this until they said it, he’s the first guy since I’ve taken the job that’s been with me for four years. That means a lot. A lot of these guys have been, when you look back at their records, you’ll look back and say they were pretty successful here at NC State. That means a lot. 

I know you’ve said you’ve taken every game one by one, but how big was it to get the first-round bye and avoid playing on Tuesday? 

That was so important. Give our guys credit, because they put us in this situation. When you look at us, you can compare whoever you want to, at the end of the day, we got nine wins in this league. That’s pretty doggone good in comparison to everybody in the league. Some people just didn’t play as many games as we played, but getting nine wins out of 17 says a lot about our guys and the turnaround that we’ve had. 

But playing on Tuesday would have made things even more difficult than it is, because we’re playing seven guys and every now and then I’m sprinkling an eighth guy in. That day is important, no matter what the situation. People say ‘Play on the first day and get it out of the way.’ I don’t agree with that. If you can get any type of bye, I think it helps. I’m proud of our guys for putting us in that situation. 

Do you think the bigger starting lineup will help against Syracuse’s size on the perimeter?

I hope it plays well. But when you look at Syracuse, they’re playing really good basketball. The last two times they played, they knocked off two really good teams in our league, talking about Clemson and Carolina, who Carolina’s the biggest team in our league. So I hope our size helps us. But at the end of the day, they’re playing elite level basketball. They’re making shots. They can make shots behind the 3-point line. A lot of people would say they take a lot of bad shots, I would say they make a lot of tough shots. That’s what they do. And then the zone is tough to score against. 

I know everybody looks around, but when I watch tape and I look at it, everybody struggles with it, because you’ve got to be able to find some cracks in it. You’ve got to be able to score in different ways. You’ve got to be able to make some jump shots from your outside, you’ve got to get offensive rebounds and you’ve got to make some plays around the basket. They turn your post guys into your point guards, because those are the guys who really have to make the plays. That’s what makes it tough. So we’re playing a really good basketball team, and it’ll be a tough matchup for us.

How concerned were you about this team when Devon Daniels got hurt? 

I was really concerned. I was concerned because at that time, we didn’t have a healthy Braxton Beverly at the time that it happened. Also, Thomas Allen, which we haven’t said a lot about, I don’t know that he’s ever had his ankle to 100%. When you talk about those three guys, those are all the experienced guys that I had on my roster. 

This team had every opportunity just to put their head down. We had every opportunity just to make an excuse. And at the end of the day, none of that happened. I give a lot of credit to the guys in the locker room, whether it be a Jericole Hellems, whether it be a Manny Bates, Braxton Beverly or D.J. Funderburk, those guys didn’t accept the fact that we could have said ‘We fell sorry, it’s a bad year. We lost our leading scorer, Thomas Allen’s gone. We’re in a pandemic. And we could have just put our head down. Instead, we all came together and we just fought. That’s what I want, and that’s what NC State’s about. When things are rough, let’s figure out a way to fight. And they put us in a position to be where we are today.

Are you worried that having a week off will disrupt the team’s rhythm?

You’re always concerned about that, because when you’re playing good basketball, you want to keep playing good basketball. And so we were hungry. We were playing good basketball. We were playing every two or three days, so we try to simulate some of that stuff in practice. Just so you guys know, I put all of the seniors on senior day on the same team, so they actually got a win that day, they played well. So that was a good thing. 

It’s always tough when you’re playing good basketball to have a pause of any type. But we can look at it as a positive. Maybe some of our guys needed a little break going into the tournament. We’ll see what happens, and I’m sure we’ll be able to Tweet about it or talk about it the first five minutes of the game.

How much do you anticipate leaning on your two Greensboro freshmen? 

I need them to play well. Leaning is a tough word, because this is their first ACC Tournament aslo. So I need them to play well, I need them to play steady. I don’t need to lean on them. You typically don’t lean on freshmen. Hopefully our veteran guys, we can lean on them and everybody else contributes. But they don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s a good and a bad thing. Because obviously when you go into the tournament, you need some upperclassmen to play well and some other guys to add to it. I hope they’re an addition to our guys playing well.

I know you and Wes Moore are close.  Did you happen to catch the end of the ACC Women’s Championship game yesterday afternoon?

I did. Wes Moore has been an unbelievable coach. He's done a tremendous job with this program. But I told him a couple years ago when Elissa Cunane came, he was going to be a way better coach than he is. I think he's starting to realize that. That being said, that team is so much more than Elissa Cunane. It's some really good players all the way around. They made big plays. They believe in one another. He's built a culture where those girls believe that they're going to win no matter the situation. 

In the semifinals and also the finals, where they had some adversity, you could look at them and realize they never thought they would lose the game. Give him credit and I know how important staff is. So his staff has done a tremendous job behind the scenes. Wes is doing Wes things. Wes is going to tell you he doesn't know he's doing it and his team is just lucky, but don't believe that. They have a chance to play for a national championship. That's how good they are. I’m not going to jinx them and say hey, they're going to win a national championship, but they're really good. That's a really good basketball team that he's put together.

One of the oldest coaching cliches is, the hardest thing to do is to beat a team three times. Is that true?

I hope it’s correct. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think a lot of these games are matchups. I look at basketball and I compare it to boxing a little bit. It just depends on the guy that’s in front of you and his style of fight. You can have a team that’s on the top of the league and a team that’s in the middle or the bottom beat another team because styles make fights. One thing I will say about those guys, what makes it tough is they have a unique style on the defensive end, because it’s different than anybody we play against, and their ability to make shots makes it really tough. So I hope that that is right, but I’m going to tell you in my experience over the years, that’s not necessarily right.

I wanted to ask about the 9 a.m. coaches calls you guys had over the spring and summer. Other coaches said when they went into their COVID pause they called you. They said that’s something they may not have done before, but those calls kind of broke down the walls. How do you feel like those calls led into that kind of thing happening this season? 

I think the calls made us come together more as coaches to fight the virus. It was one of those things that social injustice, the virus, we talked about a whole lot of different things. It let you see that most of us, even though we’re competitors and we like beating up on each other, when it came to these types of situations, we could all be on the same team. It was really good, because everybody was able to call one another whether it’s a call from one coach or another coach to find out how they handled situations. It was really amazing the team work that everybody had on the call, and every coach that was on there. What we did was we would ask ‘Well, how is your school handling this? 

And how are you handling it if we’ve got to go on a pause. What’s your protocol?’ What we tried to do is we would give enough information and we would go back and talk to our sports medicine and say ‘Well, Clemson’s doing this, or Virginia Tech’s doing this. Are we doing the same thing or is it different.’ That allowed them, we would be able to take it to the athletic directors, which we all could talk to. I could go to [Boo Corrigan] and say, ‘Hey, I think this school’s doing this, have you heard that?’ And Boo’s been tremendous through that part of it. A lot of times, because we’re so competitive, everything that we do is secretive. Nobody wants to share anything. I think in this case, we all had to get on the same page in order to get on the same page in order to do the best thing for our student-athletes.

 
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