NC State basketball coach Kevin Keatts appreciates fight in his team

NC State basketball coach Kevin Keatts knows that his team has been trying to address a variety of issues this season.

It went through a stretch where there were offensive struggles following by a period of issues on defense. Consistency for NC State has not been there except in one area, Keatts noted.

“A common thread that gets me excited about our team and what we look like is we’re fighting and competing every game,” Keatts said. “You can’t say that about a lot of teams that are struggling right now.

“But at the end of the day we do have a lot of fight, and we’re in every game.”

What has made this year challenging for Keatts is the lack of an experienced, proven big man on the NC State basketball roster. Keatts claimed it is the first season he’s been in the position of having post players learning this much on the fly.

“When you have young bigs, it’s so tough because so much pressure is on your guards just to perform from the outside, and that’s what we’re going through right now,” Keatts noted. “Every night, our guards have to be really, really good players to put us in a position to win.

“That’s offensive and defensively.”

Keatts is partially in this position because of injuries to NC State redshirt junior center Manny Bates and junior forward Greg Gantt. The former is out for the season with a shoulder injury he suffered in the opening minute of the season opener against Bucknell.

The latter, a transfer from Providence, has been recovering from a sports hernia and yet to play this year. Gantt participated in warmups on Saturday before the NC State-Clemson game, but he is still at least 2-3 weeks away from being ready to play, Keatts noted.

Keatts added that there have been discussions with Gantt and the team doctor and trainer, and all three have to be in agreement for a potential return. Gantt is currently not in good enough shape to play, and the warmup routine was part of his conditioning.

“There’s a possibility it just won’t happen the entire year,” Keatts added of Gantt’s return.

Without Gantt and Bates, it leaves Keatts somewhat limited in his options, especially with NC State redshirt sophomore Dereon Seabron now playing primarily point guard. If the Pack wanted to go small, ideally that would be with Seabron at power forward.

Moving Seabron to the point was a product of Keatts trying to find a spark in the midst of a five-game losing streak.

“We put the ball in his hands,” Keatts ssaid. “He was making plays. Early in the year, he wasn’t making plays for others. He was scoring for himself. We talked about it. He and I sat there and watched film. We communicated with him, and the coaches worked with him.

“He became a willing passer.”

By Keatts’ own admission, Seabron’s season averages of 20.1 points and 9.8 rebounds per game well exceeded what Keatts expected.

“I really though he could be a guy that could possibly jump from five points per game to possibly 12 and gives us somewhere around six, seven rebounds per game,” Keatts said. “… He’s done a terrific job for us this year and put a lot work in.

“As anybody that I’ve ever coached, he’s a guy that plays to his strength. He knows who he is. Doesn’t do anything outside of the box. He’s an elite guy in transition, tremendous offensive rebounder and he’s playing really, really great basketball for us.”

NC State basketball is 8-8 overall and 1-4 in the ACC ahead of Wednesday night’s scheduled game at Louisville, a 9 p.m. tipoff on ACC Network.

The Cards won the conference opener for both teams on Dec. 4 in PNC Arena. Louisville led by 14 points in the first half, but it needed to score the final nine points of the game to pull out a 73-68 victory over NC State.

“As our team has done so much this year, with what we are being as young as we are, we fight,” Keatts noted. “So we fought back [from halftime deficit]. We had our opportunities. They hit two big shots at the end.”

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