Family. It's time for a true look at your world. Let's get hooked up for pack therapy. Here's your host, Tim Donnelly and Graham Hill. Welcome back into pe therapy. Joining us now, the head coach of the NC State men's basketball team. Kevin Keats, uh, coach, we appreciate you for taking the time. Now. I know, you know, basketball nerds like us. We've been in basketball aggressively already, but the football national championship was tonight for last night, I should say, uh, as we're recording this, so as everybody's making their way over to basketball, I'll give them the, the cliff notes real quick. Uh, your NC State basketball team is on a, uh, a four game win streak. Three and oh, in the AC C, the best start in AC C play for the Wolf Pack since the 2012, 2013 season. Uh, and you have a big one tomorrow at home against, uh, number seven UN C, uh, in PNC arena at eight o'clock. So we appreciate you taking a little time out of your prep to, to join us. Um, and I want to start with what you've learned about this team for the first bit of the season here. Uh We talked to you at AC C tip off and the, the rotation is gonna be something that's so difficult for you to pin down because of the, the new faces because of the unique style of play. Some of these guys play and how they fit with everyone else. So, uh like do, do you know what you want your rotation to be yet or is it still a game to game thing where you're just on the fly? Well, uh Tim, what's happened? First of all, thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk to you. Uh You know, rotation is getting better and, and here's what happens is as you guys, um alluded to a little bit, you know, we, we had a good rotation, we added another good player in MJ Rice and then obviously fortunate for us with the two time transfer that, you know, Cam Woods was able to play. And so trying to get those guys in there meaningful meaningful minutes that they could really help our program and be able to win. Um But we're getting there. Uh We have grown so much over the last month. I think one of the things that really helped us is believe it or not, you know, when we went home for Christmas, we didn't have a game that Saturday when we got back. So we got in the gym you know, on the 27th and 28th and 29th and really, you know, develop a little better chemistry with the new guys. You know, we, we kinda, you know, we went back and we improved on some areas that we really needed to get better at. Uh, we kind of grew in that area. I know it didn't show up offensively at Notre Dame, but it did show up at the Virginia game, so we got better. So we're growing, I think one of the biggest things that these guys are understanding is how important scout reports are and knowing the offensive scouting report and also the defensive scouting report. NT State men's head basketball coach, Kevin Keats joined us on the Pack Therapy podcast alongside Tim Donnelly. I'm Graham Hill coach Keats, as Tim mentioned, this is the best start in conference play since the 2012 13 team won its first three AC C games. How important have the first three conference games been with an overtime win at Boston College to come from behind performance at Notre Dame and a balanced win most recently against Virginia this past Saturday. You know, Graham, I, you, you look back at the three games that we lost and you know, those teams are obviously having a great year and, you know, you start with, um, you know, BYU who really shot the shot, the basketball. I think that kind of helped us. Um, you know, you get to someone like U VA that can stretch you out and really shoot the basketball, you know, losing that Ole Miss. Um, you know, after coming back from Vegas was a good one for us. And, and also Tennessee, we, we've learned it those three losses. Um, we, we've learned from those and I think those three losses, the reason why we started off three and 02 of them being on the road and one, you know, it gets a very good U VA team at home. And if you're gonna learn, learn some lessons, you wanna learn your lessons through, you know, wins. Uh, we learned some lessons through our losses and we got better and we were able to finish two games on the road that were hard fought and at the end of them, we executed, we did exactly what we were supposed to do and then we came home and took care of what we needed to do at, at PNC. So when you look back at it, you know, you hate to lose, but those three games I think really helped us be in this position right now. What, what a coaching answer that is right. We, we asked you about the hot start in the AC C. You take us one by one through the losses that came, you know, long before AC C play. Uh, I think I, again, coaches just, just look at the game different a little and, and you're always looking at what you can build on. Um I wanna go back to something you said earlier, which is the, the MJ Rice enter into the rotation. Um because, you know, he wasn't there for something, you know, the, the, the losses you're talking about. And I think he, he kind of uh teased us a little bit, right. His first game back is the David Thompson statue uh late in the game he flies in for the dunk. I think your quote was if, if you have a dunk and David Thompson is clapping, you know, it was a pretty good one. Um And, and that made all of our eyes get, get real big, right? It's this Kansas transfer, it's, he's got, got the athleticism. He brings this other thing to the lineup, but then the, the minutes have been limited kind of as he's working his way back in. Um How close are we to seeing him, you know, fully unleashed and, and, you know, is the plan to fully unleash him when, when he does have that ability, you know, he's getting better and he's learning in practices. Um, you know, I I'm playing him at, you know, his natural position, you know, more small forward or guard position and then when we go four guards, we're trying to Sprinkle him in there because he is a bigger guard, but it's a learning process and, you know, just I imagine, you know, not really having a summer, not really having, you know, uh, uh, nonconference and then you kind of get thrown in the fire. So it's gonna take some time, uh, where everybody else has been playing together. But he's a talented guy. He's learning, he's trying to work, he's figuring out now, uh, the things that, you know, for example, a guy like DJ Horn had to figure out how to play hard in this program. And early on his offense was effective because he didn't know, you know, he's playing defense probably for the first time in his life. And so now MJ and Cam Woods are trying to figure out. All right, now you got to do a couple of things and you gotta play hard number one, but you gotta be able to pick up 94 ft, you gotta get out in transition. So as he gets in better shape and understands, um, concepts and, you know, plays and all that other stuff, you know, his minutes should go up and he'll be able to help our team going off, what Tim just mentioned or just asked you the players you brought in from the transfer portal before the season. At times, it felt like the idea of your team and maybe the rotation on the floor has just needed time to develop. Maybe a work in progress was the win against Virginia. A good example of the style of play you want to see out of your team overall and the depth you have this season coming off the bench. Yeah. You know, Graham, no one wants to hear this but it takes, you know, when you get, we got eight and we were playing six, it probably takes about 10 games and, you know, and, and especially when you don't have a foreign trip. You know, last year we had those four transfers, they were able to go to Bahamas and, you know, play a few games and practice for 10 days. So it takes, you know, some time for chemistry. I wish k it was as easy as people think it's named chemistry, so you can try to figure it out. Um But I love our rotation, you know, Michael o'connor is coming off the bench playing really good basketball. You know, I consider right now that we have eight guys who could possibly start a game. Um Michael being one, Ben being one and mo being one and then obviously trying to figure out, you know, how do you get, you know, Cam and, and MJ into some type of good rotation, but I like what everybody's bringing to the table. Um You know, everybody's playing a great role, you know, JT has completely taken over the role of being JL Joner. Uh initially, you know, he didn't buy into that. Now he's buying into, hey, you can defend and you can also score. Um you know, it's hard to find a guy, you know, a two way guy in college basketball because they're either a defender or they're an offensive guy. And with him, he's starting to become both. So I love our rotate, um, our rotation. I love the, um, chemistry that we're developing with our guys. I, I'm gonna push back on the, it takes as long as you said it did to, to build chemistry because, uh you're also what, seventh in the country in turnover margin and you're leading the AC C in turnover margin. Like to me, those are stats that come very much with like, you know, that, that freaky thing where you, you throw the ball and you know, where your teammates gonna be and you know, where they move in transition. So, so there is like this group does like each other, right? It's, it's not a whole bunch of guys that are out there trying to figure out, you know, I don't know what they all like to do that, they understand each other, right? Yeah, th this group, uh and, and to their credit, Tim, we have taken care of the basketball and what happens is, you know, some, one thing, you know, happens a little quicker than the other. You know, sometimes it's, you know, you maybe it's your defense that catching up in our situation. The one thing that we have completely won is the turnover game and, you know, we force turnovers, but we as a coach, how often do we hear the turnover be it like number one on the list like that you have to, like, that's a good thing to stand on if, if, if you're just gonna stand on one thing. Yeah. No. And we're excited about it, you know, we, we try to force as many opportunities as we can on the offensive end and, and not give it back. And the one area that we had to get better and we'll continue to get better at is I didn't feel like we were finishing, uh, possessions with rebounds, so we wasn't getting out enough in transition and other teams, even though we were taking care of the ball and we were turning them over, they were getting their extra possessions through offensive rebounds and we had to get better in that area. Yeah. Um, I wanna look towards towards tomorrow night a little bit here. Um, you know, it, it's, it's North Carolina, it's NC State. It, it's, it's going to be a high intensity game. How much do you lean on games like that to kind of, uh, you know, I don't wanna say spot check because every, every game is a test, but you look at games like this to kind of see where you are, uh, in your development and then how you are moving towards where you wanna be when, when March and, and you know, the rest of the season turn turns around. Yeah, I mean, you know, the motivation for our guys is like II I said this, I think earlier today we got four teams in, in our state that are power five that are all in the same conference. Nobody has that. And you might argue the top four in the conference right now the way, the way you were all playing. Yeah. And then in the triangle alone, we got three, you know, power five teams who are all playing well and they happen to be in the same conference and there shouldn't be any motivation. Um, you know, we're all within 25 you know, 30 minutes from each other. They, you know, they see each other all the time, they see each other at the mall. Um, they're recruited against each other. They, you know, they, you know, maybe go to the same, hopefully not a lot bars and clubs and those type of things. But at the end of the day, you know, the motivation is our guys know, you know, uh, we hear it and, and, and it will be a great atmosphere in PNC tomorrow night. I mean, it will be exciting, you know, I, I know our guys are pumped up about it but it will be a great atmosphere against two really good teams with, you know, the same record 11 and three overall and three and, oh, in the conference now, Coach Keats, I don't mean to bring up any bad memories by any means, but I just want you to do it. That's a dangerous prerequisite. Right? Hey, I'm, I'm as interested to see what he's gonna say as you are. So, so I guess we'll tune in. Let me paint this picture a little bit back on January 8th. 2019. You hosted 1/12 ran UN C team where the Tory Hills never trailed in a 90 to 82 win. All tar heel five, all five tar heel starters scored in double figures. One guy that I'm sure NC State fans are glad is no longer on the court. Luke May had a double, double UN C set the tone early by jumping out to a 12 to 0 run and never looked back in that win. How do you control this current Carolina offense going to the game tomorrow night to make sure that it's, it's balanced to start to start the game early. Well, Luke, I mean, uh Graham is Luke May your boy, you just gave him a major shout out right there. That's, I mean, I don't know where that came from. Like just early in the day, just early in this conversation, you ran through all the losses. I don't think you needed all those details. I think you probably had them like locked in your brain like competitors do, right. Yeah. No. Listen, he just gave Luke May just one of his Luke up for a job somewhere. We gotta figure. No, no, that's, that's that's not at all. If you just ask any State fan, they might, would say, you know, Luke May, that's the one guy that we're glad is not playing in this game tomorrow night for, for my money and give her like for, for state fans. Give her the whole May family, right? Get Drake May to go to the NFL. If you, if you gotta throw, Luke May, you gotta say, think about this, you gotta throw uh Al Freeman a bone for going seven for seven at Carolina. That's a no, I, no, I I'm teasing you. Uh start the starts are important. You know, we, you know, we gotta have a good start. Um You know, we don't, nobody wants to get down 12 and it was, it was a great game. We just dug ourselves such a, a major hole and it, it's hard to climb out of that. So, you know, that wouldn't be the ideal situation. That's not the situation I'm looking for. I would love to come out and get off to a good start. Uh What do you learn from? You know, you brought up that, that Notre Dame game. What do you learn from the Notre Dame game specifically the, the kind of end, right? Winning those games, uh where maybe you don't play your best and, and I loved you in the postgame press conference basically saying, and DJ Burns didn't play well. Ca Casey Morc didn't play well. DJ uh Horn didn't play well, but you win that game and, and despite all of that, you had the confidence to drop the final play for, for DJ Burns. Um, how does that help you moving into? You know, the AC C meat grinder, we know that you're gonna be in a lot of close games and knowing that you've pulled one out recently, well, you know what, we had to rely on our defense and, um, you know, what's, you know, what's lost in that game and, and I'm part of the problem, what it is. We talk so much about what we didn't do offensively, but we don't give a credit with what we did defensively, especially in the second half, holding those guys to 18 points on their home floor. And what we asked is just hang around, just keep hanging around. Offense is not going. I, I've never had a game where I didn't think anybody played well offensively and we just hung around and hung around and hung around and I said, you know, at that eight minute mark, you know, we talked about playing the game in four minute Wars. We talked about, hey, at that eight minute mark, you know, we were down 11, I think it was 745 and I said, hey, let's just try to cut it in half, you know, by that time and then we had cut it in half, but it was 245 left uh, one of the reasons why we struggled, you know, is because we didn't score so we couldn't get into our precious. And once we got into our press, we forced, you know, a, a, you know, dribble off the leg, you know, a little point guard fell down, we got to travel on one of their players. Um, our pressure kind of warmed down. They missed some front ends of one on ones. And so I think the thing that we can learn is if you're not having a great offensive night, you can rely on your defense and that doesn't happen a lot because, you know, in today's world, these kids are defined about how many batches they make. So when you don't score the ball, everything falls apart for you. Yeah, and, and, and see, I love that right? When you have a rotation like yours, we've done a ton of talk about the, the rotation with the, uh you know, all the new faces and the new guys you're working in. Uh but I also hear fresh legs, right? Uh And, and when you're talking about press, those are things you can do when you have eight starters and two more guys working in. Um Even if you know, certain players get winded, you can, you can keep them rolling in. Should we expect more of that, that uptempo pressure style defense, you know, tomorrow night against UN C and beyond. Yeah, I, and I hope so you think about, look back at that Notre Dame game, you know, we sat DJ burns for a long time. We sat DJ Horn for a long time. They just didn't have it offensively and you know, give credit to Michael, give credit to Ben, give credit to Mo. Mo came in and really rebounded the heck out of the basketball. And so, you know, as a coaching staff, what you start to do is you feel comfortable with eight guys or nine guys and you know, you're not, you know, so much in a hurry that you gotta have this guy on the floor. When you got, you know, you start to trust more guys and have them play more minutes and that's what's developing with this team coach. We appreciate you for taking the time joining us here on pack therapy. Uh We'll look forward to catching back up with you later in the season and, and good luck tomorrow. It's, it's a big one. It'll be a fun atmosphere. Hey, guys, thank you once again for having me on and um excited about tomorrow that the blood coach. All right, thanks Graham. Thanks Tim. We're back here on pack therapy following that conversation with NC State head basketball coach Kevin Keats. Uh, and, and now I thought we'd dive deeper into, uh, the specifics of the UN C game that was kind of a, a state of the program from, from coach Keats and, and where they are in their development. Uh, you know, we, we get to chat with coach a few times a season so we don't wanna make it all about one game. This can all be about one game here. Um Sorry if you guys heard that, I just moved my mic stand and it made a loud noise. Um, here's where I'm at for, for NC State right now. Um, their record is really good. Their losses, I thought it was interesting that Coach Keats went, went right into a breakdown of the three losses because what I've noticed is, uh, BYU Ole, Miss Tennessee have all gotten significantly better, risen in rankings since or I, I don't wanna say they got better. They've, their reputation and, and how people see them as they've gotten a lot better since then. So the three losses have turned into like quad one losses. They're, they're good losses, which they weren't at the time. Um, but they are still lacking that, that massive victory. Un C is that opportunity? Uh, and it's even better because it's a rivalry game. So, you know, whether they're ranked seventh in the country or 70th in the country, it's gonna be a hard fought game and, and for NC State going into North Carolina or sorry, North Carolina going into NC State's home gym of, of PNC, uh, like everything is lining up if there's gonna be an upset for, for NC State to take that opportunity to get their signature win. It's always a big time game when you play North Carolina, whether it's in Chapel Hill, whether it's in PNC Arena. And as you mentioned, this is a chance for NC State to get their first quad one win of the season. North Carolina just moved up to seventh overall in the latest A P top 25 4 quad one wins by the way. So their schedules have been set up very differently. Yeah, this is the first time since January 22nd of 1974 and the fourth time ever that NC State and UN C have played when both teams were at least three. No, in the AC C I wanted to ask coach Keys, is that intensify the feeling, the magnitude of this game? But I'm sure the, the coach answer that he would have gave, he would have given is just, we just try to focus on one game at a time and it just so happens that North Carolina is our next opponent, but I actually respect that he didn't do that. I respect that. He said, like, listen, there are four really good teams all play power, five, all in the same conference in North Carolina, three in the triangle. I shouldn't have to motivate is essentially what he said. And I agree with that. Like if, if there's someone in the pregame locker room at PNC, uh tomorrow night, you know, 745 waiting for coach to give like his a game pregame speech to, to get jacked up. There's something wrong with that player like Kevin Keats, his pregame speech should be able to be like, uh here are the starters, good luck guys and that's all it needs to be. And another thing that I was also wondering is with all the guys that he bought in from the transfer portal. Do they know how big of a game this is for NC State's program? And obviously DJ Burns and Casey Morsel played in this game last year along with OJ Thomas and KJ Keats. So I'm sure they've kind of set the stage a little bit for these new guys, but DJ Horne when asked about. All right, the next game is Carolina after the win on Saturday. He said, yeah, growing up, you know, in the triangle area, you know, we, we always think about North Carolina, Duke NC State, North Carolina kind of is the shadow a little bit but not excited. This is a big opportunity for this team. It, it, it, it is a big opportunity and I think you, you learn quick. Um You know, I just today there's, there's news going on about uh states uh collective. Their, their nil collective is going from pack of wolves and savage wolves being separate to, they're now one in the same one pack and, and savage wolves is football only, but they put out a little video and like you know, Casey Moore sells in the video DJ Burns is in the video these basketball players are immersed in, in, you know, they transfer in and two weeks later they know like, all right, you know, when we see UN C it's on site like it's, it's that kind of deal. So I think they'll understand, I think it'll be a really, really fun atmosphere um from an XS no standpoint. You know, you, you heard coach talking about how the rotation is still a work in progress. Um When you're playing a team like UN C that has an Armando Bacot that has uh a Harrison Ingram, um some of these uh Ingrams 6768 but, but Baycot, like you might see more Mo Diarra, right? You might see more Ben Middlebrooks, you might see more of the guys with size. Um And, and because they have, you know, someone has to defend a, a Baycot and uh you know, NC State seen that guy for the last five years, they, they know what he's about. So, you know, the rotation may be a little bit different in, in that respect. I'm looking at their, their perimeter players and saying, yeah, state has or uh Un C has some good perimeter players but state has a wave and wave and wave of defenders to send at them, especially if someone like MJ Rice is, is back and, and you know, being unleashed more and more so you know, the, the perimeter is gonna be, I think, um, you know, an opportunity for them to, to, to play well down low is where they have to make sure they don't get beat. And I'm glad you brought up the rotation. I think the bench is most certainly going to be important in this game. I mean, in that Virginia win, NT State had 21 points off the bench and you finally start to see guys like Ben Middlebrooks, Michael o'connell, uh mj Rice who came into the game and kind of made his presence known immediately scoring an early basket. You're starting to see these guys get a little more comfortable at the right time entering AC C play. So it's gonna be important for the depth to be utilized tomorrow against North Carolina who also has a deep bench and a deep rotation. So it might be a little Chess versus Checkers match at times tomorrow night against North Carolina NC State. It, it's also a, it is that right? And, and Keats uh coach Keats and, and coach Davis know each other and, and they know the systems and it's gonna be that all right. He's gonna think I'm gonna do this, so I'm gonna do that and he's gonna counter with this and I'm gonna do like that's all fun and games. It's also in, in rivalries and in big games and this happens to be both uh big time. What's, what's the same big time players make big time plays in big time games, big time moments, whatever it is. Um, I'm looking at DJ Burns, right? You wanna wear the sunglasses? You wanna, you wanna be in the commercials? You wanna, you wanna do all that? I'm, I'm looking at DJ Burns to have a big game because everything I said, right. You know, they have to find a way to guard Baycot down low. Well, they have to find a way to guard DJ burns down low also. And, um, quick story and, and I told this on my afternoon show yesterday, it's part of the reason why I love the culture that coach Keats is building. And part of the reason why I love DJ Burns as a player. Um, watching their game against U VA and U, the U VA game is as good as they've, they've looked to me like all season. Um, there's a play where DJ burns caught it in the corner. DJ burns, not a three point shooter, not breaking news there, right? Uh, but he was engaged and he, and he surveyed the, the court. He has good vision and he threw a full cross court skip pass to o'connell. And, you know, I try to and, and in basketball it's more difficult for me, but I try to, not always just watch the ball. I try to watch the rest the full court. Uh, so once o'connell catches it and he's open I know what o'connell's gonna do. He's a three point shooter. He caught it and he's open. So I know he's gonna rise. I know what his three point form looks like. I can tell by how everyone reacts whether it goes in or not. So I just start watching the rest of the, the, the, the court and, uh, DJ Burns started flexing like he just dunked on somebody and the, the shot goes up boom, drills. It o'connell had a really good day. Um, and Burns is looking towards the bench. He's posturing, he's doing all the, the trash talk a little bit of maybe a half chest bump. And I, and I'm going, that's why I love that culture. That's why I love DJ Burns, that was a skip pass. That was a, a, you know, the, it's like celebrating a, a dive in football or a single and, and like it was a skip pass, but you could tell he was excited that he made the right play. He was excited that he set up his teammate. He was excited that the teammate converted. Uh It was a bit, obviously, every three in a, in a basketball game is a big game or a big play. And, and I'm going, that's what they need when they get to their bigger AC C games. U VA is not very good this year. Uh Notre Dame is not very good this year and Notre Dame beat U VA by double figures. Um So I'm looking at, at, at, at that and saying that's what they need to take to the next game. That's what they need to take to UN C uh DJ Burns make the right play right. And, and sometimes you're gonna have to score 15 and sometimes you're gonna have to have five assists. Casey Morsel. I know Casey Morsel can score more than he's scoring, but right now he's doing a great job setting up DJ Horn and Dennis Parker junior and, and everybody else keep doing that. Um I'm, I'm looking at this team and saying they need to be as excited when someone else hits the shot because they made a great skip pass than them making the shot themselves. And that's what I saw from DJ Burns and I really, really liked it. I'm glad you brought up Casey Morsel definitely want to see a lot more out of him and then game, not only because he's a grad guard, but as you mentioned, your best player, your top players need to have top performances. He only had five points in the win against Virginia, two of nine from the field, one of seven from behind the arc. He started the game O and four, both from the field and from three point shooting, no NC State is gonna need to have their best players step up. You know, you're gonna, you know what you're gonna get out of Armando Bacot you know what you're gonna get out of RJ Davis who crazily enough is playing the best basketball of his career. You know what you're gonna get out of Harrison Ingram. Even Elliott Cao is starting to develop into what I think everybody was, what everybody was expecting from him before the season. What are you gonna get out of your top guys if you're Kevin Keats and, and I wanna be clear. It's not when I say that it's not just scoring. That's part of the story I told you, um, like Casey MC, we talked to him at AC C tipoff. I've said this a bunch of times. He took it upon himself to make sure all the transfers felt welcomed. He was the guy that was throwing the, the, the, you know, hosting the, the, the hangouts when everybody got together and got to know each other. Uh, and he told us that and he's, he's doing the same out there in, on, on, on the, uh, the court, making sure. Right. Nobody's left behind, everybody gets theirs and, and if he has a day, like, let's be real against Virginia, he wasn't shooting it well if you want and they weren't, they weren't, uh necessarily bad shots, right? They just weren't falling if you have that day. Heck go get, go get me six assists and eight rebounds and two steals, right? Um The, the, the best players can end the same with you. You heard coach, talk about Mo Diarra grabbing rebounds, right. If, if, if there's a game where your offense isn't working, don't be unproductive just because your offense isn't working. Uh, I think that's important to get something out of everybody in that rotation as well. Uh, the fact of the matter is it's gonna be a home game against the number seven ranked team in the country who happens to be one of your bitter rivals. It's an 8 p.m. game. So it's a night game. Everybody will have time to get off work, get a, get a little tailgate in and get to the game and have a good time. Uh, it's gonna be a big game and, uh, I, I think coach Keats will have him ready. Uh, based on everything we talked about earlier in the show, I'm excited to me and I've been going to a lot of these NC State North Carolina games growing up. This one feels like it might be the biggest one in a while just because how the record's set up. And also it's the first matchup of the season. Yeah, it's a little early in the season. But, uh, but you said, I mean, they're both three and, oh, they're, you know, one's ranked, one's not, they have identical records when you can, you can take with that what you want. Uh, but we'll be back next week to, uh, react to it and to, to hopefully have another awesome guest for you and, and to break down where NC State is in their season next, uh, next week. So until then, thank you to grant. Thank you to coach Keats. We'll see you.