Kevin Keatts: "Our Team Fought The Entire Time"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media via Zoom following the Wolfpack's 74-68 loss to Oklahoma State Wednesday evening.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference.
Opening Statement
First of all, I’ll tell you I’m super proud of my guys. I thought we showed a lot of fight today. When you look at it, we played a really good team on a neutral court, obviously without one of our best players in Manny Bates who’s going to be out the rest of the year, but I will say is our team fought the entire time. We got down as much as 14, and we found a way to claw back in it which is a very positive thing for us. We’ve got to continue to get better. I thought some of our young guys didn’t necessarily play well under the circumstances. This was similar to what we’ll get in an ACC game, so it’s a good opportunity for us to learn, especially early in our season.
How would you assess Jericole Hellems’ play tonight? It seemed like his play is trending positively after a slow start to the season.
I thought he played well because he got a chance to stay on the floor. That was one of the keys to it. I thought he played like a veteran guy. I thought he played like a senior. I thought he played like a guy who wanted to win. When you look at the way he shot the ball, he didn’t shoot a great percentage, but he got to the free-throw line. He made some plays, and obviously he was 10-for-10 from the free-throw line. That’s what you want from an older guy. It was good for him to see the ball go in the hole, and it was good for him to play well.
On the front court players adapting to ACC play now that they’ve had experience against a Power Five opponent...
Our bigs are young. We’re young there. They’re going to get better. We’re going to continue to work with them. That being said, our guards have got to do a tremendous job of helping them, and what I mean by helping them is we’ve got to do a great job of taking away entry passes, great help-side defense, digging on the post when the opportunity is there… Those guys will get better. I promise you. They’ve already improved within the last three weeks, and as we go along, they’ll get even better.
The team got to the free-throw line a lot in the second half and made those free throws. Is that encouraging to see as part of them continuing to fight back and trying to force that contact inside?
We played well today when we got to the free-throw line and made some plays. When you look at last night, I think we missed nine or 10 free throws. I thought we were aggressive. I thought we did a lot of good stuff. What we’ve got to do is get better where our guys have to throw their bodies. We’re not a big team as far as a rebounding team, so we’ve got to do a better job of hitting people. The thing I want these guys to grow on from this game is that I want us to become a little bit more mentally and physically tougher. I think we’re fighting and we’re playing extremely hard. I just want us to grow in those areas.