Kevin Keatts previews Tuesday's showdown at Virginia

NC State basketball has a marquee ACC showdown at Virginia on Tuesday night. Ahead of the game, Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media to discuss that game plus more during his weekly ACC teleconference.

You can watch that video via TheWolfpacker.com’s YouTube channel.

Highlights from the transcript is also provided below.

Kevin Keatts transcript

What has been your experience coaching Casey Morsell and, and how has your relationship with him developed?

Kevin Keatts: “Well, first of all, … he’s a tremendous young man and I’ve seen him grow in the last couple of years. He’s gotten very comfortable with our situation. Obviously, … Tony [Bennett] and his crew did a great job recruiting him to UVa. Really special kid, and he had to adapt to two different systems, and he’s been really good at that.

“And I think you’re starting to see him have more confidence this year than he’s ever had in his whole career and really shooting the basketball well for us.”

What have you seen from how his game fits kind of what you asked him?

Kevin Keatts: “Well, I think it was an adjustment. I think he’s a type of kid that could play in any system. I think he wa very productive for Tony and those guys too, but it took a while. Anytime you get a transfer, and obviously they have to play a completely different way than what he was used to.

“And I think I’ll have to give him a lot of credit. He’s kind of adjusted, and he’s learning how to play the way we want to play and also to be effective doing it.”

Just wondering from from your perspective, looking at Virginia, Jayden Gardner has been a little bit more involved offensively for them the last two, three games. … What have you seen from him in scouting UVa?

Kevin Keatts: “He’s really talented. I think what happens with him is he’s kind of a … throwback post because his ability to make a 15- to 18-foot jump shot. Not really the traditional back you down guy, but his ability to space you out and, obviously they do a great job with him getting him to kind of the short corner and to the free throw line area. And you really have to respect his ability to score the ball.

“I think one of the things he’s gotten a lot better at [is] he’s done a much better job of getting offensive rebounds, and he’s scoring in a lot of different ways than he has in the past. But he’s talented.

“Anytime you got an older guy who’s played and once again, we talked about Casey Morsell, as a transfer now he’s starting to feel a little bit more comfortable the way Virginia likes to play and he’s had, his games lately have been really, really good for those guys.”

Terquavion Smith was able to impact the game outside of scoring [vs Georgia Tech], making his teammates better. What does that do from your standpoint as him just making the team makes better even on a low shooting percentage?

Kevin Keatt: “Well, I think it shows maturity with him. We sometimes forget that he’s just a sophomore, but being here last year, he wouldn’t have done that last year. If he wasn’t scoring the basketball it would have really affected the other parts of his game.

“The thing that I’ve been really impressed with him is that he, a lot of times when people go through their draft process they don’t listen, and he’s really listened to what the scouts have talked about. One of the things we talked about is if you’re not having a good game scoring the ball, how do you impact the game in other ways? Even though he didn’t score, … he made a lot of passes to lead to scoring and 10 assists a career high for him.

“That’s the maturity of his game. I don’t know if he’s first, second, third or fourth in the league in assists but that’s one of the parts of his game that I think has really grown and, it’s respectful because we all know that he’s a natural scorer, but when you can also get your teammates involved, I think that’s a maturity thing for him.”

Your guards didn’t play their best offensively this past game facing Virginia. What are some things you’d like to see them try and do maybe better in this matchup?

Kevin Keatts: “I thought Georgia Tech did a great job keeping us off balance and you could tell that the focal point of the game was not to let those two guys really have a good game. I thought we stood around. I didn’t think we did a good job of sprinting away. I didn’t think we did a good job of pushing the ball in transition where we didn’t get easy baskets.

“So for those guys, I think a lot of player ball movement would be important. I think they both still were effective, even though Jarkel [Joiner] didn’t play well offensively, I thought he did some great things on the defensive end.

“But when you’re playing against Virginia, Virginia is always tough. Number one in the country for many, many years defending, and so it’s also going to be a tough game for them and we have to obviously don’t let the ball stick.”

Last year you had one of your best offensive games last year against them. Can you look back at that tape and or do you just view it like your personnel is so much different you really can’t look much at it?

Kevin Keatts: “Yeah, I don’t think it will help at all. They have a different team. They’re playing different. We have a different group of guys. You can certainly look at it if you want to just to see how the flow of the game went, but at the end of the day, I thought we played one of our better games at home last year when we shot the ball well against those guys.”

Wanted to ask you about the importance of of DJ Burns tomorrow night. Anticipate that Virginia is going to double him a fair amount which they they tend to do in the low post and also, when he has to defend? How difficult is it going to be for him to be chasing that small lineup they’ve been using lately?

Kevin Keatts: “Yeah, I think it’s a challenge on both ends. Obviously Tony’s done a great job with his program. I don’t think he’ll change because he’s playing against us. And so we expect, as we’ve always have, no matter who we play, who’s been at that position, they probably want to do some double teams

“And DJ’s got to do a good job of trying to score the basketball but also, if those double teams come, find guys who can make shots or plays off of it. …

“Outside of when we play Virginia Tech earlier in the year, when you’re playing Gardner and you their ability to step out and shoot it, it’ll be a different thing for him to be able to guard guys outside of the block. And so he’s got to really do a good job in that area and sit down and defend.

“We do have challenges on both ends of it trying to figure out how to score with him against the way they play defense, and obviously he’s got to do a good job on the other hand defending those guys.”

How big of an opportunity is the month of February that you have ahead of you now that a couple teams have dropped some games that are ahead of you in the rankings?

Kevin Keatts: “Well, … we look at the whole entire schedule. … All of them are, and I say this, it’s everybody has a quad label to them. We had two tough games this week that are really good teams and unfortunate if you you lose them it could hurt your NET.

“I think when you look at the game tomorrow, against a very good Virginia team on their home floor there’s another Quad 1 opportunity. I think anytime you can throughout the month or prior to leading up to the Virginia game, you got to look at opportunities now because they are so important, especially since a few years ago we went to a NET system where everything is based on your quad ones versus quad twos, threes and fours.

“And obviously tomorrow will be another great opportunity for us, and … it changes. It depends. … By the time you play a team two weeks from now, they could be a Quad 1, Quad 2, and so could we, or Quad 3. Just depends. So this is this will be another great opportunity for us, and we have to take try to take advantage of if we can.”