NC State advanced to 11-9 overall and 7-8 in ACC play after a 68-61 road win over Virginia Wednesday.

Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts answered questions from media members following the game.

Here is the full transcript from Keatts following the win:

"We’ve been talking over the last two or three weeks about playing a complete game, and I thought you saw a majority of what we did. Our guys did a tremendous job.

"Looking at the first half, I thought we played 17 great minutes of basketball. They had one segment where we lost a couple of guys and they made a couple of baskets. To say how proud I am of these guys, it’s unbelievable the fight that we’ve shown these past few weeks.

"We’ve had so much adversity in this program this year. Obviously, the first one being COVID, which everyone has. But just losing your senior leader. Without another experienced guard in Thomas Allen, and just to see these young guys grow up from practice-to-practice and game-to-game. I thought they played tremendously.

"When you look at the scoreboard, the stat sheet and you see DJ Funderburk, the way he played. Cam Hayes was tremendous down the stretch, made free throws, he was 7-of-8 from the free-throw line. Shakeel Moore did a tremendous job, Dereon Seabron did a tremendous job. Our guys are getting better. I

"I'm happy for these guys because we're getting success the right way. When you look at us, and I don't know how many teams can say this, this is our fourth road win in a row, and that's pretty impressive. Happy for it. I thought Virginia played well down the stretch, made us work for it at the end, and we're blessed to get out here with a great win."

Things looked grim after the Duke game. How have you righted the ship in the last three games?

"We've been bought in. I've said this all along, some of that you have to give credit to Duke. Duke is playing really good basketball also, and Matthew Hurt is playing well.

"Our guys locked in after the game, and we knew that we were better than the way we played. I've done something different that I haven't done in a long time late in the season, I've kind of played a lot of four-minute segments of games, just so our young guys can be able to grow up a little bit and make some mistakes, we can correct those mistakes.

"The biggest thing for us is that we got a complete buy-in from everyone. I don't know if you guys got a chance to see our bench during the entire game, but the energy level on the bench is unbelievable. Everybody is truly happy for one another, and we're building a great team. That doesn't happen when you got so many young guys, and our guys are buying in."

When you play a defensive team like Virginia, how big was it to knock down those first three three-pointers?

"Tony does a tremendous job with his team. They're one of the best, if not the best defensive team in the country. It's always important to be able to make shots. I thought our guys came out with great energy.

"One of our keys to the game was getting off to a great start, making sure that we got some good looks and executed the plays that we ran. I thought our guys did a tremendous job of doing that and following through. It's tough to score against those guys. We found some areas that we could score in.

"Our bigs were tremendous. We changed the way they had to play a little bit because of our size, so they ended up playing a couple big guys."

You guys outscored Virginia 30-16 in the paint. Virginia is known for being tough around the rim with the pack-line defense. What worked tonight down low?

"That's the strength of our team right now, and that's why we're throwing the ball into DJ or Manny Bates or our guys are driving it. Getting in the paint, you look at it, I thought DJ and Manny were really good inside. Shakeel Moore got to the rim a little bit, Jericole Hellems had a couple of stick backs inside.

"We're playing to our strength, that's the way we practice now, and it was good. We're looking for our bigs, they understand and they accepted a bigger role now."

Manny Bates with three assists again tonight. How big is his development of being able to pass out of double teams and what does that do for the rest of the offense?

"I love the way you guys love Manny Bates. Would y'all be talking about any other guy with three assists? I love that. You know what? I will say this. If he had three assists, he's probably got more than DJ has in two years, so he's doing a good job.

"His skill level is getting better. The next step, and I know you guys are going to laugh when I say this, next step is I'm going to get him shooting threes like Jay Huff. He's put in a lot of work. Now he thinks he's Magic Johnson, and he's not anywhere near that, but he's passing the ball well."

Was there anything from the first matchup that you really wanted to adjust defensively going into this one?

"When you look at the first match of round one, Trey Murphy crushed us. Murphy had 18 points, and he made threes, he back-cut us.

"When you look at Jay Huff, even though in the first matchup he made one three-pointer, he really stretched us out a lot, and we were in scramble mode.

"Then obviously Sam Hauser, one of the best shooters in the country, their strength from the three-point line is their three, fours and fives. We wanted to do a good job of taking them out of the way they shoot the ball. I thought we did a good job. I

"f you can hold those guys to 7-for-25 from three, it can be a good night for you. They usually make about nine threes a game and shoot a great percentage."

It seemed like you wanted Dereon Seabron on Kihei Clark a lot tonight. What went in to that decision?

"We were switching a ball screen with Huff. My choices were either to put Cam Hayes, Braxton Beverly or Shakeel Moore on him, so we're going to switch that one to five screen and they let it run, I wanted to have a bigger guy on him. "

What type of traits does a team need to have to make a recovery like you guys have?

"It comes down to buy-in. It comes down to a sense of toughness, it's a mindset. If you believe that you're not good, then you're not good. We've talked about, obviously, all of these guys are really good basketball players. I've asked them to grow up a little quicker than they needed to.

"But we completely bought in. When you look at it, the ball moves from side-to-side. Everybody's playing a role, everybody is genuinely happy for one another. And typically, you don't get that in a team. In order for us to be a really good basketball team, we don't have that one guy on every night that could score 30 points.

"Every night, it could be someone else leading us in scoring, rebounds, steals, blocked shots. Not blocked shots, Manny's going to have that. Or assists. And our guys are completely bought in to where we're trying to go to."

How about for the coaches?

"It's made me have a lot more patience. I'm getting a few more gray hairs. I don't know where they're coming from. But I will say this.

"I'm not coaching these guys like they're freshmen. I'm coaching them like they're upperclassmen. I'm coaching them to teach them how to do a good job in areas, I'm praising them when they do well, I'm getting on them when they don't. Reason being is because I need them not to be freshmen, so they're starting to play like that.

"They're accepting coaching. The coaching staff is doing a tremendous job with those guys, watching film with them, getting extra work in, so it's been a learning experience for all of us."

You guys made a lot of free throws down the stretch, most of which from your freshmen. What does that say about them?

"It says a lot that those guys are growing up. When you look at situations late in the game when you need guys to make free throws, you typically don't want to put a freshman to the line. I felt very comfortable.

"You go back to just the Pittsburgh game, Cam Hayes stepped in and made two big free throws. Sometimes the greatest thing about freshmen, they don't know what they don't know. They don't get nervous because they can just step up and they never had to be in that situation.

"It was good honestly to see our guards step up and make free throw because the weird thing about it is, our best free throw shooters this year have been our post guys."

Besides Shakeel Moore and Cam Hayes, how have the rest of the freshmen grown this season?

"They've all gotten better. I know those two, we talk about those two guys a lot. Dereon Seabron has played very well for us. He's actually getting better in a lot of areas for us. He gives us the ability to have a bigger guard or a bigger wing that can play on the defensive end, he's great in transition.

"The young guys we have on our bench that you guys don't get a chance to watch and see play, those guys are getting better every day in practice. Nick Farrar and Jaylon Gibson, who's played a little bit, and E.B. Dowuona. I love the freshmen, it's just hard to play six of them, basically, in a season when you got to play upperclassmen to try to win."

Tonight was Cam’s third-straight game in double-figures. He talked about how his play in the Pittsburgh win gave him a lot of confidence. Do you think he needed a game like that to really show the growth he has in these past few games?

"I do. If you guys remember, early in the year, and I know some of you guys wrote about it, Cam Hayes was playing some of the better basketball on our team. That was non-conference, it was a short non-conference.

"Then obviously because we had to pause because of COVID, I think the pause affected our freshmen more than anyone.

"He's getting confidence in every game. It's hard in this league to basically give the keys to the car to a freshman, but he's earned it. He's stepping up, and he's playing big for us.

"He's doing a good job of finding people, he's doing a good job of scoring the ball when we need him to, and he's also doing a good job of taking care of the basketball, and it means a lot."

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