Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball versus Grand Canyon on November 25, 2025 at 10 PM
10 PM
Men's Basketball
vs Grand Canyon
.png&width=31&height=31&type=webp)
.png&width=31&height=31&type=webp)
![Oregon [Exh]](https://images.sidearmdev.com/crop?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdxbhsrqyrr690.cloudfront.net%2Fsidearm.nextgen.sites%2Futahutes.com%2Fimages%2Flogos%2Foregon.png&width=31&height=31&type=webp)
![Nevada [Exh]](https://images.sidearmdev.com/crop?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdxbhsrqyrr690.cloudfront.net%2Fsidearm.nextgen.sites%2Futahutes.com%2Fimages%2Flogos%2FNevadaAthletics_Navy.png&width=31&height=31&type=webp)
The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Larry Krystkowiak's Weekly Press Conference
12/7/2015 12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 7, 2015
On Wichita State…
Their record is not indicative of the type of team they are. They’ve been playing without VanVleet, obviously, and playing some good opponents. They will play UNLV on Wednesday and then us on Saturday, but it’s the first two formidable opponents that they have had at home. They’ve been on neutral sites and on the road, so that record is not at any idea of what caliber of team that they are.
On continuing to win at home…
I don’t think it should be a pressure situation. I think it’s important if you’re going to be a high caliber team that you protect your home court. I mean, that’s part of the description when you maybe work from the end backwards, that’s what we’ve done I know with the Navy seals. You figure out what your goal is, your target is, and then you work backwards. One of the prerequisites to reach some of our goals is to take care of the home court and then you have to accomplish certain things on the road and obviously the conference tournament, league play, and different things. It is almost a given I think to do that and it shouldn’t be magical. It’s going to be a huge goal for us this weekend to go out in a real hostile environment, have a road mentality, and know you have to be tougher in a lot of areas. Maybe a little more disciplined and you have to have a mindset that the crowd doesn’t come into play. If you are really dependent on your home crowd and your home environment, you might be a good team but you’re never going to be a really good team.
On the tough crowd environment in Wichita preparing for conference play…
We aren’t playing Wichita State at this point to necessarily try to get better for conference. We are trying to figure out a way to beat Wichita State and then I think what you do when you have that experience and it takes place is that you can lean on it like, hey okay, maybe there’s not a place in the Pac-12 that’s going to provide that kind of road environment or certainly nothing is going to exceed it. You can maybe lean back on that and that’s part of the process. This is a game that we bid off a couple years ago knowing it was going to be an elite level team in a home and home situation and now we’ve got to go pay up our end of the bargain and go to their place. We have got to be really good. That’s what we have to focus on more than anything.
On last year’s match-up…
They got ahead 10-0. So we were down 10 points in no time, but we managed to get back in the game and had a ten point lead with a couple minutes to go when they pressed us and we looked a little bit like we did at the end of BYU. Point shaving and throwing the ball away. We have to be really good. Wichita St. is one of those teams that does a little press from time to time and we have to be ready to handle that. The turnovers, I think, are a huge key in comebacks. You have to get yourself on shot on goal and have an opportunity to make them defend for a little while, but it’s really an Achilles heel when you’re going to turn the ball over. It happened last year and it can’t happen at any point this year.
On what makes Wichita State difficult to play…
They play really hard. They play defense. They have Baker and VanVleet, guys I remember watching in the NCAA tournament here in Salt Lake like three years ago. You would think they would be gone by now, but they did a lot of damage when they got to a final four when those guys were freshman, if I’m not mistaken. What more do you need to know when you have a couple guys that have played that many minutes and been that successful that they are now seniors and leading their team. They have a lot of pieces to the puzzle and play the game the right way. They are not going to beat themselves and that’s probably the biggest thing.
On Fred VanVleet…
He’s been injured a lot of this year. He’s a great pick and roll, plays with a lot of poise, not a high turnover type of guard, makes the simple play, strong, and has the ability to get to the rim. He is one of those guys that makes his team a heck of a lot better. That’s the key to a good point guard. Somebody that enhances everybody else’s qualities and they play to the strengths.
On three-point performance…
We shoot hundreds of them and when we practice we shoot a bunch of them. We have five guys on our squad right now that are shooting in the 20 percentages which is not dazzling anybody. Overall as a team, if you look at our percentage it’s roughly a third, 33%. Still when you do the real field goal percentage those are 50-percenters so it’s not the end of the world but we have got to get a lot more from five guys. You can look at the stat sheet and see the five guys that are shooting in the twenties, two of our power forwards and three of our guards. If we can get clicking as I said before, it’s not a team where we want to go out and start the game shooting threes. I think we have established a post presence with a few guys and if we can start hitting the open ones and start taking wiser shots at better times, I think it can be a deadly combination for us offensively. I’m not as worried about our offense. We are doing what we are supposed to do. You shoot a bunch of them, you practice what you aren’t doing a good job of. Right now for us, I think we really need to sharpen the saw when it comes to the defensive end and get some things worked out. This could be a favorable week for us having four practices. We haven’t had that kind of stretch before. We have to fix a few things that are broken on the defensive mindset and I truly believe we have some guys on our team that are probably thinking a lot more about offense than they should be. My understanding of this karma-dharma and my associations with basketball is if your mind is not on the right things, in terms of getting down and guarding somebody and having your priorities in place, then a lot of times the basketball jumps up and bites you in the butt and you end up shooting 20%. If we get back to thinking about what’s really important and moving the ball and taking good shots not complicating things, I think that is going to help our offensive field goal percentage.
On Kyle Kuzma’s performances…
He has put a lot of work in. He has addressed the weight room situation and he has addressed some deficiencies as a defender and continues to make improvement in it. I think it really kind of starts in the day and age of 700 plus kids transferring when the season is over because things aren’t rosy and perfect for him. He was a guy that came into my office last spring and said, ‘Hey, it wasn’t a very enjoyable freshman season, but I’m willing to buy in and do whatever you need me to do.’ We laid out a list of things for him to do and he has done them. He puts a lot of work in. He is one of our better rebounders, he is one of our better passers, and he’s got some confidence when he plays at home and now we have to make sure he’s taking that out on the road show with us because we have a number of games coming up in a foreign environment that he has to be better. Hopefully, with some experience as a sophomore now, he is going to start taking advantages of some of those opportunities.
On players sticking around for all four years…
I don’t necessarily think it is more of a trend but I think it is refreshing. First off, you have to get freshman that are good enough to play. If they are playing as freshman, it’s a heck of a bonus I think for you as a coach and a program to get guys who run through that process. Not everybody is running off to the NBA markets and finding program guys. I think those guys, whether they are on Wichita St. or as you mentioned on our team are what I would define as program guys that can really change a program and take you to the next level and hopefully help in the recruiting of future guys and kind of show that the blueprint works. I think it’s a bonus when it can happen. I think it is maybe a coincidence with our two teams but it is a reason that I think Utah and Wichita would be considered a decent team this year is because we’ve got some senior leadership.
On Wichita State’s front-court…
They have some good players. They have some size inside and some guys that play really hard. It’s not a back-court team, necessarily. Kelly is a good player for them, a young man who we recruited from the east coast that’s a formidable opponent as a 4-man. They are talking about having the kid from Kansas going to be playing in his first game so that is going to be a highlight. They have a lot of pieces to the puzzle. They have dilemmas for us at positions one through five.
On having a full week of practice…
I think you have probably a throttle speed, percentage of your throttle speed or rpms that you maybe have it written in the back of mind, at the top of your practice sheet. If you have a game in a day, you can’t be pounding guys and working on block-outs and taking charges and doing those kinds of things. When you have a little bit further time before you have to play, I’ve got in the back of my mind, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday practicing, we are going have a couple practices going full throttle and we have to accomplish some things and get a lot better. I think what happens when you have four days to practice is you can probably dedicate two of those completely to your own team and not be caught up in what your opponent has to offer. When you are playing games two days apart or three days apart, it is hard to take that day where you say this day is just for us. We have to fix some of the things internally because you always in the back of your mind have the next opponent in mind. I’d like to tackle today and tomorrow and fix a bunch of things that are broken within the Utah program and then have Wednesday and Thursday more specifically on the court to taper into some of what Wichita brings to the table. I think from that point of view, it can be a little bit more training camp mentality and expect in our guys, I told them Saturday afternoon when they left the gym that they better get ready for a little different intensity type of practice because we have to pump it up here a little bit moving forward.
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's BasketballUtah: 85, Cal Poly: 92 | Utah Basketball Postgame Press Conference
Friday, November 21
ESPN+ Feature | Utah Basketball's James Okonkwo
Thursday, November 20
Utah: 85, Purdue Fort Wayne: 77 | Utah Basketball Postgame Press Conference
Wednesday, November 19
Utah Basketball Media Availability | 11.17.25
Monday, November 17