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The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Larry Krystkowiak's Weekly Press Conference
12/22/2014 12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 22, 2014
Preparing for South Dakota State:
Traveling back and then having the day off means we have a lot to discuss and go over during practice. South Dakota State is coming off three games in three nights and won them all. We had a stretch of three games in four days over Thanksgiving so we know how difficult that can be. This has been a tough stretch for us. This isn't Wichita State coming in, but they are a very good team, 9-3 this season. The kids are done with finals so I think that helps but with the Christmas holiday looming, we have to be focused and prepared
On what he has learned from the difficult non-conference schedule:
I was worried on maintaining our focus during road games last season. We have now played in some raucous road environments and I hope we can lean on that experience later. If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger, that's been our motto with this non-conference schedule. Our guys are communicating better and showing a lot more poise. You just hope you're better off for it. Playing in so many different environments and against changing styles has been a test. South Dakota State is another well-coached team that has good ball movement and is patient offensively. We have a lot of pieces to the puzzle and if we accomplish things in practice the next two days, we'll be ready to play. It's just another style of basketball we will see this season
On how he thinks the team has performed from the difficult schedule:
I think there are two sides to that. I'm more of a glass is half-empty type of person, as all coaches are. I'm not pleased with certain things but I have to flash back to when we were putting the schedule together. The reality is if you said we'd go 3-2, I'd take it. We were close in the two losses and you wish you could have done certain things better. We went from five challenging teams to six with South Dakota State on Tuesday. I'll be happy to break down the non-conference performance of the team after Tuesday.
On whether the slow starts worry him:
I'd give the same type of answer to the previous question. Like a lot of coaches, I want to fix what's broken. It's nice to come back and respond but getting down early, the bad spurts, the start vs. Wichita and the first half vs. Kansas, those are all things that I think about. Looking at our performances from the first half to second half, they're definitely skewed to the second half. We have to figure out a way to be better. It's still a bit of a quandary. This is like last year where we lost close games because of free throws, rebounding, etc. Wichita is a really good team and it hit us in the mouth. Kansas was similar. Their environment, mixed with shooting 60 percent and the fact they guarded us well. Our slate was supposed to be difficult. Our strength-of-schedule is top 50 nationally and the next closes team in our league is in the 90's (Colorado).
On what displeased him on Saturday:
We were soft around the rim. Both our guards and bigs struggled. UNLV leads the nation in blocks for a reason. We didn't play well defensively either. Our numbers were fool's gold because they missed a bunch of open shots. We had breakdowns in our transition and half-court defense. Sometimes, like our games against Wichita and Kansas, you play good defense and the other teams shoots well. This was the opposite scenario
On Delon Wright:
He and I are never going to be satisfied. You're only going to be as good as your next game. If you get complacent it jumps up and bites you. He has a target on his back, chest, forehead, all over, because he is so vital to our success If you were to compare it to baseball, he is going to see different pitches and he will have to adjust. We need three, four, five guys to piece things together so we have that offensive balance moving forward
On Jakob Poeltl:
He gave my wife a huge hug and he was jovial and excited that we got the win. He knows he didn't play well but we won. He's a team player and we had enough points on the board at the end of the game. He's not down but he knows he needs to get better, offensively and defensively. He's just a freshman so it's part of the process.
On Delon's playing time:
He doesn't need to be on the floor at all times and the media timeouts give him a lot of time to rest. If I saw diminished energy or him being lax on defense I'd take him out, but he's not. The competition has called for him to be on the floor. We had a week to prepare for UNLV and had days off so maybe in Pac-12 play we pull back. However, like I said, with the media timeouts, there's plenty of rest during the game.
On Brandon Taylor:
Brandon did a terrific job on Rashad Vaughn, UNLV's leading scorer, and then he hits two 3-pointers and a pair of 2-pointers. If your mind is right going into the game, good things happen. He was engaged from the onset. He's one of our best shooters and he had a really solid game.
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