Kevin Keatts breaks down NC State's aggressiveness vs. Boston College

After an 81-70 win over Boston College over the weekend, N.C. State head coach Kevin Keatts had high praise for his squad. Specifically, he lauded how they followed the game plan so well.

And the plan on Saturday against Boston College was simple: Be aggressive and get touches and shots at the rim. It was a plan Keatts and his staff developed after studying a recent Florida State win over the Eagles.

“What we did is we looked at the Florida State game and the last game that we played, I think it was an 11-point win by Florida State,” Keatts said. “And they did a great job of getting paint touches. And they got to the line 29 times and we talked about that, ‘Don’t settle. Drive that basketball. Play inside out.'”

While the win for Florida State was actually by eight points, not 11, the recipe that the Seminoles laid out worked wonders for the Wolfpack, which shot just 6-for-20 from 3 on the day.

N.C. State attempted 24 free throws, making 21, and shot 43.5% from the field on the game. And the all-around effort to follow the plan and get into and attacking mode on offense had Keatts singing the praises of his team.

“And I’m proud of this group because they’re following scouting reports,” Keatts said. “Our assistant coaches are doing a tremendous job of putting a game plan together and they’re doing a good job of following it.”

Keatts addressed NC State’s status for the NCAA Tournament

Keatts isn’t concerning himself with NCAA Tournament projections. The Wolfpack (17-10, 9-7 ACC) find themselves on the wrong side of the bubble at the moment but are hopeful for a strong finish to change that come Selection Sunday.

NC State closes the season with three games against quadrant 1 opponents in Duke, North Carolina and Pittsburgh. Although that’s certainly a difficult stretch, it also means there are still plenty of chances to improve its tournament resume.

If the Wolfpack can win a couple of those games, it would certainly improve their outlook heading into the ACC Tournament.

“We have opportunities in front of us,” Keatts said. “I think we have four games left in the regular season and I think two or three of those are quad 1s. We can only control what we can control. We gotta win games and figure out and figure out what the number.

“As you guys know, every team has a number attached to them instead of how good you’re playing and how good your league is. Unfortunately, it happens that way. We’ve got a lot of fighting in us. We’ve got four more regular season games and we’ve got the tournament. So we’ll just figure out what happens.”