Kevin Keatts: "You Would've Never Known What Tournament We're Playing In"

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack’s 75-61 win over Davidson in the first round of the 2021 National Invitational Tournament.

NOTE: Click the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.

When you guys decided to play in this tournament and get that bad taste of Syracuse out of your mouth, was this the kind of performance you envisioned?

“I want to clear something up. It wasn’t so much that we decided to play because of the bad taste. I know everybody says that: ‘bad taste.’ Anytime you’re in a tournament situation and you lose, whether it’s by the amount of points that we did or a one-point game, you’re upset because you’re a competitor. We played in this tournament because it’s a really nice tournament. They do a tremendous job. It was 16 teams. It wasn’t 16 teams that were close to a losing record. These were 16 really good teams. They probably had about 21 to pick from, and some guys decided they didn’t want to go. I thought it was important because our guys needed the experience. Our younger guys, we’ve got five guys on our roster, three of them that are really playing a lot, which are freshmen that haven’t had a chance to ever play in a postseason. I wanted D.J. [Funderburk] and Braxton Beverly to also have that opportunity. No one played postseason basketball last year. I didn’t want these guys to have to go two years without having a chance to compete and play in the postseason. It’s a valuable experience for us. I’ll tell you guys tonight, and no matter what happens the rest of the tournament, but I love my kids. They’ve worked hard for me. I’ve learned so much from these guys through the pandemic and the injuries than I’ve ever learned in my life coaching. If you’re still learning, a guy like me that’s been around for awhile, that’s a positive thing.”

How do you assess this performance? How pleased are you?

“I thought we were great. I thought our ball pressure was good. We moved the ball. We executed the game plan probably better than we have the entire year. We want to play inside out. Our post guys were tremendous. When you look at their numbers there, off the charts. Eighty percent for D.J., 100 percent for Manny Bates and then 50 percent from Jericole [Hellems]. They played great, and then our guards, who didn’t have a great scoring first half, started to play in the second half and gave us a tremendous lift. I’m proud of these guys. They’ve done everything we’ve asked. The last couple days if you guys had been in our practice, you would have never known what tournament we were playing in. They’ve been excited. I’m happy that we’re that way.”

How beneficial is it for your younger players to be in this tournament?

“It’s everything. Most programs have gone home. We’re still playing. The extra practices that we get, the extra opportunities that I get to teach these guys... It’s always a teaching moment. In this situation with our young guys, I get a chance to talk to them about how to finish games and how to start games, how to play in the middle of games. It’s refreshing to see guys playing good basketball in March. We played against a very good Davidson team. A lot of folks that I talked to thought that they should have won the Atlantic 10. They’re that good. I thought we did a really good job. Bob [McKillop] does a tremendous job with his program. They always have a very good team. We played really good. We had to play that way in order to beat them, and I was happy with the way our guys played.”

What were your thoughts on Funderburk’s performance and how he’s remained motivated in what’s likely his final collegiate games?

“He’s been everything that you want from an older guy. I have to compliment D.J., Manny, Jericole and Braxton. Those were the four guys I leaned on to figure out, ‘What do you guys want to do?’ I know what I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to push that on those guys. All of those guys, to a man, said, ‘We want to play.’ They came out and played the way you’re supposed to play basketball .That was fun. If you’re a Wolfpack fan and you watched that game, you’ve got to say ‘Man, that was a fun game.’ That was NC State basketball that we played on both ends of the floor. I’m excited that we’re playing hard that way at the end of the year.”

What was the gameplan defensively against Davidson?

“They back-cut you. They’re a tremendous passing team. We tried to turn them over. When you look at it, they had 15 assists and 10 turnovers. They make you pay for all of your mistakes. What we talked about was being aggressive and tracing the basketball. We wanted to have a lot of deflections in order to be able to beat these guys. Even when you break down, and you’re gonna break down because they backdoor-cut you, they come out stacking screens and read what you do. I thought our guys did a good job of guarding the basketball. That cleaned up some of our mistakes. But it’s as tough a team as we’ve played all year as far as how they cut and their ability to shoot the basketball.”

With Kellan Grady entering the game just 10 points shy of 2,000 for his career, what did you do well defensively to hold him to just 12 tonight?

“Guys like that, you just hope that they don’t make shots. I want you to think about this; 2,000 points, that’s crazy. That’s impressive. We did a good job. I’m glad to say that he got his 2,000th point against NC State because he’s a really good basketball player. That’s tough to do, to score 2,000 points in your college career. He’s a tremendous kid. We just wanted to be there on the catch. We wanted to make him take tough shots. I thought we did a good job. We were able to keep him from making the 3-point shot, which was a positive thing for us. He’s the type of kid that can go off for 30 points against you. Our guys took on the challenge.”

What do these postseason games mean?

“It means a lot. We played 23 games coming into this game. Normally we’d play 31. We didn’t get a chance to play about eight games. My young guys never really had a nonconference. Even though it’s been a long year and a challenging year, it’s great that we were able to play in some postseason tournament. Our guys right now, they don’t know the difference. They’ve got a chance to play on ESPN, and we’re thankful and grateful that they covered us. And we played a really good game, so that means a lot to us.”

What’s the gameplan for the next week?

“You’re asking me to work tonight. I’m going to get these guys ice cream. I will say this: We will be off tomorrow. Other than that, I don’t know anything else.”

McKillop said your freshman guards were dangerous and commended their defensive play tonight. How encouraging was their defense tonight, especially winning the turnover battle?

“I love that Bob said that, but I don’t want those guys to believe that yet. They’ve got more defense to get better at. No, I talked to Cam Hayes right after the game and said ‘I need you to continue to be a floor general. This is a big part of why we are here, for you to grow up and learn.’ I thought we were really good. I thought we were really good. We picked a good time to be good. We’ve won six out of seven games. A lot of people would love to judge us by the one game we played in the tournament against Syracuse, but we’ve won six out of our last seven games. We’ve played good basketball during that stretch.”

Does it help that you’re able to watch Colorado State and Buffalo play tomorrow with a week before you play the winner?

“I don’t know. I mean we’re gonna watch the game, but I don’t know. All I know is that they’re two really good basketball teams. The unfortunate thing is I haven’t had a chance because we’ve been going through our own situations to watch a lot of other conferences. I’m a basketball fan. I know both of those schools have a lot of tradition. I know one of them, Colorado State, is a No. 1 seed, and they were right on the cutline to make the NCAA Tournament.”