NC State coach Kevin Keatts talks about how his team stayed focused during its unexpected run through the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament. State has won nine straight games to reach its first Final Four since 1983.
Well, what I've learned is we are completely locked in and focused. Um, you know, with the, the moment has not bothered us and I know a lot of people was, was thinking, hey, you know, when they get to this stage, uh, there were a lot of folks that thought, you know, winning the AC C would be enough. Um, you know, and people would be satisfied but not in our locker room. Um, our locker room, you know, our guys, you know, when we got, you know, when we got into the tournament before they even selection Sunday, all we thought about is, you know, let's take one game at a time, but we wanted to come in and have a chance to compete for a national championship. And really, do you see that? I mean, you know, the way things, um, you know, us winning the tournament, our guys could have been, you know, relaxed a little bit. Um, you know, you play a great Texas tech team and then you get a team in Oakland who's hot, who just beat Kentucky and to stay focused, to finish that game and then you go on to play a good Marquette team who's really good, who can beat anybody on any given night. And then by the way, you, you face your opponent, um, and Duke who's really good. It was a rivalry game and they were able to respond. So I think the biggest takeaways of that is our guys are locked in. Um, they've responded to every different situation that we had and, um, not only have we, we responded, we've kind of got stronger each game.
