What Kevin Keatts said about NC State basketball’s lost San Diego weekend amid tough stretch
As much as Kevin Keatts enjoyed N.C. State’s magical run to the ACC title and Final Four last spring, he knows the work this season is to make a third consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.
The Wolfpack needs to build on that success, to show it is truly back among the ACC’s elite.
What he saw in San Diego on Thursday and Friday, when N.C. State (5-2) lost by double-digit margins to the first two power conference teams it played this season, left him concerned.
And he’s not pointing any fingers outward, but inward.
“Right now, I’ve got a bunch of guys that, when one thing happens, they let it snowball into another thing,” Keatts said. “That’s my job. I got to figure that out. When you print this, there’s nobody to blame. I accept responsibility for my kids. They’re playing hard. We’re just not in the right spots to do the right things and we’ll get better.”
The Wolfpack started the season carrying over all the fun from that historic nine-game March winning streak that brought the first ACC championship since 1987 and the first Final Four berth since 1983. The banners were revealed at Lenovo Center in early November as Wolfpack fans basked in the glory.
This season’s N.C. State team started with five games in their home arena, all against teams from lower-rated conferences. The Wolfpack won all five by healthy margins.
But that success stopped at Cal-San Diego’s LionTree Arena during the Rady Children’s Invitational.
Thursday, No. 13 Purdue beat the Wolfpack, 71-61. Friday, BYU built a 24-point lead before dusting off N.C. State, 72-61.
The Wolfpack was unable to generate the kind of scoring out of transition it had over the first five games. Purdue and BYU both won the rebounding battles by double-digit margins.
Two more games against that level of competition await this week, albeit at Lenovo Center. N.C. State plays Texas at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday before opening ACC play with Florida State on Saturday at 4 p.m.
Before those games, Keatts seeks to bring his team together in ways it didn’t show in San Diego.
“I think sometimes, with a new group, you play as more individuals,” Keatts said. “I think we’ve got to get connected on both ends of the floor. I don’t think we have selfish guys. I think all our guys generally like each other. What we’re trying to get them to see is that you have to do little things together in order to win. It takes some teams a little bit to click.”
That obviously happened last season, when everything clicked in March. Senior guard Michael O’Connell, author of one of those magical moments with his buzzer-beating 3-pointer against Virginia that kept the Pack’s run going in the ACC tournament, knows he has to help bring this group together.
“We’ve just got to keep playing for each other,” O’Connell said. “It’s gonna be a big thing for us. I definitely think I can do a better job trying to get everyone going. I definitely take a little onus on it that we haven’t been playing the best in these past two games. As a team leader, I’ve got to be able to get guys ready to play.”
The Wolfpack is at its best when it fuels its transition offense with steals and strong rebounds. That leads to high-percentage shots so it doesn’t have to rely on 3-point shooting, an area of the game that hasn’t been good so far.
If the Pack can produce 20 or more fastbreak points per game, the fact that it’s a 29% 3-point shooting team won’t be so damaging.
That’s why Keatts is hammering home the point about his team needing to play connected basketball. The best defensive teams play together to react quickly and cover gaps to stifle offenses.
Forcing teams to commit turnovers and miss 3-pointers allow for transition offense to get going. N.C. State needs more of that for more of the game.
“We know we have the capability, the potential, to guard well and hold teams from shooting the ball well at certain times,” O’Connell said. “But we’ve got to build on that and make sure it’s for longer periods of time, throughout the whole game. We’re alright for little spurts throughout. We got to make that more consistent throughout.”
The Wolfpack have a solid point guard in O’Connell, who scored 16 points against BYU and who leads the team in assists per game at 4.8
On the interior, the 6-9 Brandon Huntley-Hatfield has the talent and drive to be a positive factor. When asked about the team’s rebounding issues, he said he and his teammates simply need to man up and take the fight to the opposition.
Transfers Dontrez Styles (Georgetown) and Marcus Hill (Bowling Green) are still getting adjusted to playing with their new teammates.
That’s what Keatts was talking about when he mentioned his players are still playing as individuals and not as a team, in the manner he seeks, anyway.
“We’ve just,” Keatts said, “we got some things that we need to clean up and if we clean those things up, then we have a chance. But I didn’t think we played connected basketball this weekend.”
His job is to fix that and fix it quickly. The Wolfpack have two important home games this week that will provide it a chance to right its season.