Kevin Keatts reflects on win over North Carolina

One day after beating rival North Carolina in Raleigh on Sunday, NC State basketball coach Kevin Keatts met with the media for the ACC conference call. Below are highlights from that interview. You can also view the video courtesy TheWolfpacker.com’s YouTube channel.

Kevin Keatts Transcript

Hey, Kevin. I’m working on a little bit of a different story about the evolution of coaching staffs and do I understand correctly that you have a little bit more of a coordinator based staff this season? With the new staff coming in?

Kevin Keatts: “We have a new staff and, … I’m doing it a little bit different than I would have in the past meaning. I’ve taken a little bit of a football analogy and got guys who are in on the offensive side meaning, offensive coordinator and how do we score against teams, and then I’ve got a couple of my guys who concentrate really on how do we defend.

“And so it’s actually worked out well, for me. It’s something different that I’ve never done in the past. But it’s really been good because it keeps everybody engaged in every game that we play.”

Is there any regret that you didn’t do this earlier?

Kevin Keatts: “No, because we’ve had great years where we did it a little bit different. But I think it’s important that you evolve and as we go along, you got to give different things and I think when I added a new staff, which my other staff I thought was really good too, but it gave me different energy and I wanted to take advantage of doing something different because I had new folks.

“What the other guys, with more other coaches, it was more being consistent to what they had done and what they were really good at.”

Is it easier from a motivational standpoint, as a coach, when you’ve kind of gotten through a lot of the year to where now you understand what what’s ahead of you as a player?

Kevin Keatts: “Even though I got a little bit more of a veteran group … I took the opportunity about two weeks ago, or maybe even not even two weeks ago, to say we had six games left. And it was a six-game season, regular season. And that was probably as far as I looked ahead with this group because we typically just concentrate on the next game.

“So, I know our goals are changed, but you can’t reach your goals or attain them if you don’t win the next game or put yourself in a great situation to win the next game. So I really, going into Carolina, we didn’t talk about anything other than here’s an opportunity to get a quad two win against a good team.

“Unfortunately the way things are set up because of the NET everything is about quads. No matter who you play. You got to figure out is it quad one. It’s either gonna be a good win or a bad loss. And so in our situation, I haven’t looked at, ‘Hey, you can achieve this or we can get here or talk about this.’ We just we concentrate on this what you can do to your NET in order to get to a quad one win.”

How important are the in state wins to not only building your program inside of the state of North Carolina but also when it comes to things like recruiting and bringing the fan base back?

Kevin Keatts: “I will start with one part of it. You know, the recruiting part of it is a little bit different. Probably Wake Forest and us, we probably recruit to state a little bit harder, I would say now. There could be some disagreement in that, depends on who you talk to.

“As far as our fans, obviously, I’m tickled for our fans because obviously they get to have a chance to go to work today or tomorrow. Obviously most are off today and have a chance to have a little bragging rights.

“I’m happy for our kids. You know whether we say it or not, our kids read that stuff and they grew up playing AAU against a lot of the players that may play in state.

“But as far as winning, is it more important to win in state? I don’t say it’s more important. I say each year presents a different thing because it just depends on you know who’s the hot team and what their quads are and certain teams that you have to win in order to put yourself in a great situation. And not to diminish a win against Carolina or Duke because I think they all are important. But at the end of the day this system has changed the way you look at everything.

You had on this team obviously guys like Terquavion Smith, Greg Gantt several others that you have on this team, what did did this win mean a little bit more to them to be able to beat UNC and already have you know wins over every in state team now at this point in the ACC?

Kevin Keatts: “Yeah, I don’t know. … I’m not one of those people, ‘Hey, did they recruit you?’ Or, ‘They didn’t recruit you and you should play harder.’ We believed in what we have on our roster and we know we got some guys ready to go. So I couldn’t make that to statement.

“But I do know Levi [Watkins] told Terquavion If he didn’t win the game, he probably couldn’t come back to Raleigh because he hadn’t beat Carolina. So I think maybe there was something a little motivation piece for him, and he was completely joking with him. But I thought that was funny for him to say that to him.

We’re going to Greensboro for the ACC tournament this year, Washington next year. Beyond that, is there any place that tournament hasn’t been or hasn’t been in a while that you would like to see it go to any new sort of cities or places like that?

Kevin Keatts: “That’s a good question. What about, and you tell me this because I don’t know this, have we’ve been to Charlotte or we’ve been back to Charlotte in a while? (Not since 2019.) Okay, so I’m making my pitch for Charlotte.

“I like Greensboro because it’s close to us, and I have no problem with D.C. To be quite honest with you, I have no problem wherever you go. Especially if you’re seeded high enough and put you in a good situation.

“But I think Charlotte is growing and I think it’s a good place for everybody to be able to go and enjoy yourself and you know, be able to go out and have great dinners and go to bars and then go to the game. And reason being is because they’ve already got it set up for NBA team.

Armando Bacot had a double double but he wasn’t his most dominant game against you guys. What did you like in the way that you defended him?

Kevin Keatts: “I’m happy as I don’t know what. I mean the guy’s put up video game numbers against us. He’s 23 and 18, and I didn’t I didn’t like that at all. And I think I think he has 16, if I’m right, and he had to take 14 shots to get there, and I was happy with that.

“Look, Armando Bacot is a really good player. He is tough to guard. He puts a lot of pressure on your defense. Even the shots that he missed he tend to get back and score. And so for us, for him to have to shoot, take that many shots, to get 16 points, and most people will be very disappointed that you gave a 14 rebounds but I’m actually excited about it.

“We cut his rebounds by four and his points by seven and he still had a great day.”

On Jarkel Joiner influencing Terquavion Smith:

Kevin Keatts: “You know we don’t have a lot of five-star guys or McDonald’s All-American guys on our roster out of high school. But I do think we got one in the transfer portal.

“I don’t know that I could have got a better person, combination of a player to lead your team than Jarkel Joiner. He has been great for Terquavion as an older guy who’s been through it. He’s allowed Terquavion Smith to be Terquavion Smith and never complain about if he takes a shot. They have developed a great bond.

“You know one of the things they’ve thrown that alley-oop from Terquavion to Jarkel five times a season and never worked. And it actually worked against Carolina and boy you thought they were two kids in a candy store.

“They were so excited, but he’s been great for our locker room. He’s been great for our program. I’m going to try to figure out if I can get him another year through some type of petition to get him back because you don’t find kids like that, that you know was willing to sacrifice on some given nights his ability to score to help his team win.

“And I mean, he was he was tremendous against Carolina.”