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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 15, 2015Larry KrystkowiakBrandon TaylorSan Francisco, California LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Great to be here. I think symbolically, this kind of kicks off our season. Been a part of this for‑‑ this is year five, and today's events really are a reminder, I think, for all of us that this is a great league to be a part of, something special. It starts with this event and then it finishes in the MGM with the PAC‑12 tournament. I just want everybody to know I feel like I'm the luckiest coach alive being with our program. Unbelievable city and state, to be a part of this league and be able to coach players like this. It was really difficult, you figure you can only bring one student‑athlete with you and there's about four guys that are deserving of being up here. Brandon hasn't been a part of it. Jordan Loveridge has been here in the past. Dakarai Tucker is another senior that probably deserves to be here. And then I think Jacob Poeltl would probably be a candidate, as well. But Brandon is here to represent us, and we're both happy to be here. Q. The new practice facility opened a few weeks ago, the impact that's had on your program, your ability to recruit? And for you, Brandon, just the ability to skip on the way to practice instead of just walk? BRANDON TAYLOR: Definitely, like when we have our early morning practice, I definitely don't have a problem waking up early and coming to a facility like that and just really getting things going. It's just the facility is incredible. You know, it's incredible, and we know what it stands for. We take good care of it, and we take pride in our facility. We're trying to do our best to keep it up, to keep it up and take as much pride and appreciate it, as well. We're appreciative of it, and it's humbling. It's definitely humbling, and we're appreciative. LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: These guys are learning how to keep it clean. We had a couple hours of cleaning the other day. We've always talked within our program about our culture, and we've defined it pretty simply as who are we and how we do things around here, and it's been really based on the type of people, whether it's the coaches you get a chance to hire or the kids you recruit, high‑character kids like this, and to be honest, maybe we've been lagging a little bit in facilities when it comes to our practice. You'd bring recruits in, it was kind of that fast way through the practice court. A lot of other programs in our league had nicer facilities, and now here we are, I think, without a doubt, it's the nicest facility in our conference and one of the nicest facilities‑‑ if there's a nicer one in the country, I'd like to know where it is. And like a lot of things, you can build a beautiful church. If you don't have the right people in it, it's kind of all for naught, and I think that's the same thing we're talking about with this facility. It's a blessing and an honor to be a part of it. It's a statement from our administration how important the athletics are. Football had one built a couple years ago. There's all kinds of new facilities all around our campus. It's fun to be a part of, and we're really grateful. Q. Jacob Poeltl came back for a sophomore season instead of going to the NBA. Can you talk about what we should expect to see from him this season? LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Well, Jacob is‑‑ I think first and foremost, there were a lot of people talking about how he was a definite first‑round pick, and it was quite‑‑ this was brought to my attention the other day, it's quite a statement for the environment that we have for him to be willing to give that up and come back. That's not the norm. A lot of student‑athletes nowadays when they're pretty much guaranteed a first‑round pick, they're off to the next level. He's a young man that came in at 220 pounds. He's over 250 now. He's worked on his post game. We've established two or three moves in the post that we're going to ask him to make. I think in the past he's always avoided contact. He's taken a lot of off‑balance shots in the post trying to use his quickness, and the result of that is if the shot is missed, which it was oftentimes, he was never getting a rebound and he was never putting any heat on the defense. So this year we're asking him to play the game lower, more powerful, a couple simple moves and a couple counter moves and try to put some heat on the defense. I think he can do that, and then he has to step up at the free‑throw line and make three out of four of them and improve the free throw shooting. That's going to be an opportunity for us to score some points. But he's a great kid, a student of the game like none other I've really coached, soaks everything up. You tell him something once, wants to learn. He's a sponge, and he loves college. That was probably the biggest thing we had going for us is that he loves the college experience. He loves being around these guys, and he's going to be a big part, obviously, of what kind of success we have this year. We're asking a lot of him. Q. Brandon, with Delon Wright moving on, what will be different about your role specifically, and then also can you tell us where your game has grown the most over your four years in Salt Lake? BRANDON TAYLOR: Where my game has grown the most is really just maturing, just maturing and using every season and really going back after every season and look where I can get better, and I think defensively that's where I've really grown. I wasn't‑‑ freshman year I probably wasn't as dialed in defensively as I've been junior year, and I think that's the biggest thing that our coaches tried to instill in us and make it a point across, because at the end of the day you're not going to get on the floor if you don't take pride in defending. So I kind of switched around, and even Delon being such an offensive monster last year and even such a defensive monster last year, like I really‑‑ I thought to be a little bit different. I thought a little bit different and be a stopper for us. There would be games where I would step up scoring and stuff like that, but I was really trying to be as consistent as possible on the defensive side and let the offensive side carry us. I think this year will be the same thing, and I'm going to still do the same thing, and it can only get better. It can only get better and be more defensively minded, as well as scoring and getting my teammates going, and that's probably one of the biggest things this year. And it's not just vocally, it's more just being out there and really just being a veteran out there, and that's one thing I want to focus on. Q. Could you reiterate, we were talking a little bit ago, and tell my colleagues what you mentioned about the branding of this conference. I thought it was really impressive. Tell us about the PAC‑12 that people may not know. LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Well, I mean, I grew up on the West Coast, or in the West, in Montana, and it was always about the Pac‑10, and that's the best league in the west, without a doubt. I think there's a little bit of an East Coast bias. People can't stay up that late to watch a lot of our games. I've heard time and time again before I was even involved with the league that the Pac‑10 was down. I used to follow Coach Montgomery's teams at Stanford. The Pac‑10 is down, and yet you see three teams in the Sweet 16, and I believe we're second only to the ACC in the last four years in players drafted to the NBA. And so I think the next‑level people are finding our guys, and we're winning games on the big stage at the NCAA Tournament. Kind of a plea to everybody that maybe a little bit more respect. I think we know out here in the west what we stand for, but that needs to trickle a little bit throughout the country. Q. You and I have talked several times about the trajectory and just improving year by year. You've improved by four conference wins the last two years. To do that again would make you guys 17‑1 in a very good conference. How do you reconcile progress with maybe not necessarily four more wins, or how do you take a step forward with a team that's already very, very good? LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: That's a great question. It's the same mission statement and blueprint we've had since day one. Those questions were asked: How many games are you going to win? How long is it going to take to turn it around? So many hypotheticals in that. And what we do on a daily basis, which has been pretty consistent, I don't feel like we're in any different arena with any different expectations. The goal is still the same for us, to try to get better when we practice tomorrow, and I think you consistently do that, and you hope that that graph is trending upward. Now, is it going to be a failure if we don't win 27 games or go 17‑1 in the PAC‑12? That's out of the question. We've got a new group of guys that we need to try to put them in positions where they can be successful. We're going to have to create new identities. Brandon is figuring one of those identities out, and everybody is going to have to take a little ownership. Everybody loses players, I think, except maybe Pinks who's got his whole team back. But for the most part, you lose something, you gain something, and we have to build on it, and the key for us is to be playing our best basketball at the right time of the year, which is about the time that tournament rolls around, and that's our goal right now. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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