Kevin Keatts: "It's Hard to Beat Any Team When You Have This Many Turnovers"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack’s 69-61 loss to Boston College Wednesday night.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the press conference.
Opening statement…
I thought our guys played hard but it’s gonna be hard to beat anybody when you turn the ball over 18 times. When I go back and look at the stat sheet, you don’t know that during the game but we gave up 21 points off of turnovers, and then they had 12 fast break points. That’s 33 points that we didn’t get a chance to defend in an eight-point game. I thought we did some good things, Terquavion Smith was really good, as he’s been the entire year. [Dereon] Seabron, I thought he was great in the first half, which is a little different from what he’s been before, but in the second I think he only had three points. We did some really good stuff, but it’s hard to beat any team when you give up that many turnovers for touchdowns.
I’m a little concerned about Thomas Allen, I’m afraid that he may have a torn plantar fascia, which is a possibility that his season may be done. If you guys get a chance, please just say a prayer for him. I don’t know that, but it doesn’t look good and so I’m gonna give you an update. I’ll try to give you an update as soon as we can find out something in the next 24 hours. That’s sad to be a young man who is going into senior night on Saturday, didn’t get a chance to finish his season last year. I feel bad for him, I feel bad for our team. That will put us at eight scholarship guys. That’s tough to swallow.
On when Allen got injured…
I don’t know. He waved to me and said he had to come out, and Thomas usually doesn’t do that. So that’s what we think. We’re hopeful that it’s not. I’m only telling you that because that’s what our trainer seems to think it may be. I hate reporting stuff that’s not true, hopefully I can come back and say to you guys that’s not the truth, but I don’t anticipate seeing him play on Saturday.
On what happened during Boston College’s 20-5 second-half run…
I just think we just were careless with the basketball. I always judge how many shots we get versus the other team, and we got one more shot and we’re a tempo, pressing team [that] creates more opportunities. Because we had so many takeaways from them and they took away from us it just didn’t give us a chance to win. It’s hard, I think outside of Nebraska, I think that’s the most turnovers we had. And Nebraska was a four-overtime game.
On struggling to defend Boston College’s post players…
It’s tough. We have a problem guarding one post, let alone two. And our guys, they’re fighting their ass off but [Boston College’s] size really hurt us.
On if he expected any sloppy play after a week off…
No, I didn’t. You can’t go back as a coach and [as] if time off is the reason we turned it over. But we turned it over. My problem with turnovers is I just don’t like turnovers for touchdowns. We didn’t get a chance to defend against the turnovers, and that was the biggest problem. You can turn the ball over, you look at the Georgia Tech game, we had nine assists and 13 turnovers but they weren’t live-ball turnovers. When you have live-ball turnovers, it just doesn’t work for you.
On Dereon Seabron’s second-half struggles…
I’ve been trying to figure that out all year long. He’s had great second halves. He hasn’t been able to put together back-to-back [good halves]. He’s had great games for us, but we haven’t seen games where he’s played great in both halves.
On his message to the team after tough losses…
Our message is gonna be the same as if we were winning. We’re just gonna keep fighting, keep playing hard. We literally take one game at a time. We talked about going into this game, we have four games in the regular season and then in the [ACC] Tournament, anything can happen. So, we wanted to build some great momentum to try to get into the Tournament, because the Tournament can be magical. Anything can happen in the Tournament if you can get hot and you can start playing well. I thought we had a great game, probably our best game, against Georgia Tech because we played well on both ends. And then tonight I thought we did some good things, but we turned the ball over. Whatever questions you guys have, my answer is gonna come back to we can’t turn the ball over 18 times. That’s what we do to other [teams].
On if this is his most challenging season as a coach…
We can make an argument for that, and challenging for a lot of reasons. I don’t know if I’ve ever had this many injuries, number one. Obviously no one wants to hear this [but] we’re still dealing with pandemic stuff and obviously we are still in the back end of what we had to deal with with the NCAA. So when you put all of those three together, it’s been a really challenging season. But what I respect about our guys is every time we step on the floor, we compete. Every time we step on the floor, we fight. Most games we go into, we’ve been on demand. We’ve found a way to win some games, we’ve found a way to be in some games and we’ve lost a bunch of games.
On Terquavion Smith’s fight no matter what the score is…
He just broke the freshman record for most 3-pointers in a season. Man, that’s incredible. I don’t want to take away from his performance this year [just] because we’re not having a great year. That kid has been special for us, and he’s played far beyond a freshman. When you think about his 83 threes, he is in great company with some guys who could really make shots. He’s been an unbelievable bright spot, all of our guys have been bright spot. They and this team have been in a really tough spot, and to their credit, they fought every single game. There could have been many opportunities where these guys may show up and we just feel sorry for ourselves, and we punch the clock every time we go in to practice and every time we play. We may lose by a certain amount, a bigger margin, or we may win a game, but I can honestly say they fought their ass off.
On what he wants to see for the seniors on senior night Saturday…
Let’s forget about who we’re playing. Man, it’s senior night. I don’t know if Thomas Allen is gonna be able to play in the game on senior night, but he’s a local young man who originally signed here, ended up going to Nebraska [and] with a coaching change he ended up coming back. You can’t say enough about him. Jericole [Hellems], in today’s time, is a guy who started here as a freshman and will end here as a senior and has gotten better every single year. If nothing else, I would hope that everybody will respect the fight of what we pride ourselves in at NC State of punching the clock, because that’s a guy who is not the quickest, he’s not the most athletic, but he’s punched the clock for NC State the entire time that he’s been here. And I hope that everybody comes out to send our seniors off the right way; that would be great.