Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus No. 9-Seed Cincinnati (1st Round) on March 10, 2026 , Loss , 66, to, 73
Final Score
Men's Basketball
66
vs No. 9-Seed Cincinnati (1st Round)
73
The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Larry Krystkowiak's Weekly Press Conference
3/2/2015 12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 2, 2015
(Coach Krystkowiak reads from Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess)
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
On the mood following the Arizona loss:
We haven't done anything differently. It probably affected some people more than us. I know it meant a lot to folks in the community, our fans and us. it doesn't change how we break down film. We will stay consistent with our effort and file it away for a possible meeting down the road. Now we can get ready for the Washington trip.
On what he expects from WSU and UW:
We have played these teams before and we are familiar with what they do. We watched film and we will charter from Pullman to Seattle. After games you can't sleep anyway. It's a pipe dream to ask our kids to go straight to bed. This will be like a NBA trip, jumping over to Seattle. Just two games left and then it's time for Las Vegas.
On his use of analogies involving other sports:
Well there are a lot of comparisons you can make. Watch SportsCenter and read newspapers. I like to use the boxing and football metaphors. I told our guys the other night, it's a heavyweight fight, round 14 and we had the advantage playing at home with fresher bodies. I think boxing and wrestling are two of the hardest things I've ever done physically and mentally. A lot of our guys haven't done that but if you have, you see the relationship between the sports.
On Oregon moving up and being in position to take the No. 2 seed:
There's no pressure, none at all. We haven't been trying to finish second. We want to play all 18 games and then they'll tell us who we are playing in Vegas. The surefire way to get to the (NCAA) tournament is win in Vegas. Maybe you finish as an at-large team that makes it in. The regular season doesn't matter. You don't want to look too far ahead and start thinking `what region of the NCAA are we looking at' or `what team do we want to play in the Pac-12 tournament'. That's so far off. You could always run into someone or some team that could get you. It is a life lesson - control what you can control and right now that's preparing for Washington State.
On helping out at Krystkowiak-ville:
I woke up at 3:40 a.m. and took the dogs for a walk. I felt how cold it was with the wind howling. The kids camping out had propane overhead heaters so I brought little packs of matches and Coach Parrish and I brought the wood. We had it popping and smelling good. The fire reminded me of summer. It was fun to hang out with those guys. It was quite a sacrifice by our fans. Everyone held up their end of the bargain from the dance team to the cheer team to the band and all the fans. We just came up a little short.
On what he's proud of when he looks at this team:
This time of year is a grind and we are digging up a ton of negatives so let's throw in some positive. I'd commend our guys for being ready. There hasn't been a locker room where we came out flat, except maybe UCLA. It says a lot because you can't coach effort and focus. The attention to detail is getting better. We are one of the few teams that ranks really high nationally in regards to offensive and defensive efficiency. I have to remind myself that we are doing good things and we are far from perfect. Like Saturday, we are improving and we have a handful of games before the NCAA Tournament. It goes against my grain to focus on positives. A few years ago we needed to show our guys positive clips and now we don't need to remind them of those things. We need to show them the things we need to work on.
On what he intends to work on with his team this week:
We need to get a lot sharper and we have a list of things to get dialed in. We need to be more fluid on both ends of the floor. The season comes full circle that's for sure. We put seven points on the board and one of them is `do the ordinary things extraordinarily well.' We have to get back to screening. Trying to score against Arizona, we were not being aggressive. If we don't improve there, we are going to flounder. We just need to get back to basics. It's training camp. You have three hours of fundamentals during a practice - look at baseball and how at this time of year, they're taking grounders. You better have those fundamentals dialed in and you better be doing all the little things. If you don't you're going to get on SportsCenter. Take blocking out free-throws for example. I'm just glad we have games left because that could have been disastrous.
On Delon Wright:
There's more in the tank than last year. He comprehends how to be aggressive. When you tell him to get to the rim, some guys only do that one directive. You have to pick your spots. We show our guys video and you can tell them `hey, you could've attacked here' or `you could've taken the shot'. We have clips where Delon is doing his thing and the guys are just hanging around, not much motion. Delon gets put on an island and people need to be, what we like to call, in their bail-out spots. They need to put themselves in aggressive spots because Delon will find you. That's one thing we really need to do at the end of the year.
On the fouls Saturday:
There were plenty of teachable moments. Brekkott fouls a guy. That's simple. It's something you see in every shell drill. If you stand up, you're going to get screened. He reaches out and grabs Brandon Ashley. Just be down in your stance. Jakob had some bad hacks. For example, Gabe York would've taken a bad shot and Jakob makes the ref call it. We had a bunch of instances where we made it hard on ourselves. Defend the free-throw line. Defend without fouling. Arizona is bigger and stronger at every position so some of the fouls had to do with the flow of officiating, but we have to get down and guard
On what he's proud on after another season at the Huntsman:
The thing that's been cool, right off the top of my head, is seeing this place rocking again. One time I was with the Jazz and Stew Morrill invited me to a game when Rick Majerus was here. It was great. You watch the games around the league, other than Arizona, the crowds are not really there. My kids always love telling me about how the crowds are really amazing. I sat in there this morning in the dark and now that the season is over, I think we made huge strides with bringing back some of the excitement to Utah.
On team toughness:
We have been smacking guys with bags and today we will have live 1v1 and 2v2 drills. So they can beat the crap out of each other. It's amazing how easy you can finish when you know it's a bag. We missed about five layups; Brandon, Delon all of our bigs. You get those chances against Arizona and duh, you better finish those chances.
On the play of his frontcourt:
We need more out of our bigs. Dallin, Brekkott, Kuzma, everyone has to do a better job of protecting the rim. In 1v1 situations on the block the other night, we looked silly. We missed screens. We don't have a chance if our bigs do not step it up and bring something to the table.
On Stew Morrill:
Stew was our big man coach at Montana when I was there and he taught me my post moves. He reinforced playing hard. He was a nasty bugger as a player and we almost got in fights because we both didn't like to lose. He played some in the open gyms when he was a little more agile. I remember banging with him and we had some battles. He is one of the best human beings there is. He's not flashy, not concerned too much with the outside world. He cares about his friend's family and team. I respect the way he treated me. I lost my sister-in-law during my sophomore year before a tournament and I was crying my eyes out. Stew stayed with me. He always does the right thing and he's cut from the right cloth. He's had my back and I hope he knows I have his.
Players Mentioned
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