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PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYOctober 21, 2016Larry KrystowiakKyle KuzmaSan Francisco, California THE MODERATOR: We welcome Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak and Kyle Kuzma. Coach, an opening statement and we'll start off with questions. LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Yeah, I'm excited to start off another season. This event continues to grow and get better and more efficient. Our basketball team, as everybody knows, we've got a number of new faces on our squad, and the guy next to me is one of the returners, five returners and some new faces. You know, it's never boring. It's different challenges each year, and I know a lot of you aren't familiar with our players other than the guys I mentioned. You can just rest assured we've got some guys that can play a little bit and are excited, and have an opportunity in this case to hopefully exceed some expectations. We're going to continue to do what we've done. This is year six at Utah. Regardless of whether we're being picked 12th or first or whatever the case might be, we're going to pretty much stay in a short term mindset and try to grind and get better every day, and that's what we're going to continue to do, and we're looking forward to the season. Q. What are you expecting out of Jayce Johnson? He came in mid season for you last year. What do you expecting out of him this year? LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Well, Jayce Johnson, he's very intriguing player. There's not many kids, and Kyle can attest to this, seven feet, a lot of seven-footers. I don't know how much they truly love the game. I think a lot of times big guys are playing because somebody's told them they're supposed to be playing. But Jayce is extremely passionate about it. He's one of the hardest working guys, even in a short period of time I've been around him that I've coached. It's never going to be an effort thing for Jayce. Kind of a bull in the China closet a little bit. He's been doing a tremendous job of rebounding in our practice setting, and going to have to figure out the foul issue. Gets a little aggressive through some of that enthusiasm, but he's great to have. It's hard to coach seven-foot, and he's extremely coachable. He's getting better, and I think he's got an extremely bright future. Especially if you look at maybe the last two months, we've seen a lot of growth and development in the last two months of the season, so good things, I think. Q. I was wondering, I know Pac-12 play is a ways off. But how do you kind of try to tell the newcomers about the intensity level, the speed, and some of the things they have to be ready for by the time conference play roles around? KYLE KUZMA: I think one thing that I try to stress to the new guys is a whole different team than the Pac-12 season. A lot of these guys are coming from junior college or they're freshmen or even transfers. That's just the biggest thing. You can't take plays off in the Pac-12 because it can sting you. Some of the courses of last year, we've seen that. Q. It seems like you have more outside shooters this year as opposed to maybe the last where you've set the ball more to Jakub or your other bigs. Is your offensive scheme set to change this year? What is your offensive scheme coming into that mindset? LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Well, I mean, we've got a couple basic offenses that we've been running, that we have run since we've been here. I think part of the responsibility of us as coaches, I can't say we're a basketball program that has a system that goes out and recruits players to that system. I think what we've done is you try to recruit the best players you can get, and put them in positions where they can be successful. And I don't think much is going to change with that. You can remember DeLon was a key player for us, and we put the ball in his hands, and put DeLon Wright in a situation where we thought he could not only do well for himself, but that would lead to wins for the Utes. Then we lost DeLon and had to do the same with Jakub, and the focal point became to throw the ball inside. So we're at that situation a little bit. As I told our team the other day, we haven't called any special plays. We're kind of grinding it out. Very vanilla right now within our offense, our motion offense, continuous pick-and-roll offense, ball moves. It helps your defense. Then as we start making progress here, we'll put guys like Kyle and Lorenzo, and other players within our program in some special plays. But you know our program. We're always going to execute. That's always going to be a non-negotiable, whatever the play may be, and we're going to share the basketball. We've done a nice job with our assist rates leading the conference the last few years in field goal percentage. So those will be things that stay consistent. You can add a few different wrinkles to it with different people creating the production. Q. Kyle, congratulations on a tremendous sophomore season. I thought you did a great job complementing Jakub in the post. Now with Jakub in the NBA, how will you specifically adjust your game this season? KYLE KUZMA: Well, this off-season I've been working pretty hard, and I take a lot of pride in my work ethic and trying to evolve my game. The biggest thing Coach K has been talking to me about is trying to get my teammates involved more, and I think that will benefit us a lot. It's no secret we'll have 12 new guys, and I'll have a lot of attention because I'm one of the only returners. So if I can make it easier for them, it will be easier for me too. Q. Coach, back-to-back years you've had two players selected in the first round and both to the Toronto Raptors ironically enough. But can you talk about how much it helps your program to have guys get drafted high from a visibility standpoint and career standpoint and to see guys succeed and become first round picks out of your program? LARRY KRYSTKOWIAK: Yeah, I've been asked that question before, and I can honestly say that the biggest joy with that scenario comes from knowing that two young men reached their dream, more so than how it helps our program. Everybody wants to reach the pinnacle of their profession and not many can. And if you know DeLon's background and his sacrifices, and then to watch him grow not only as a basketball player, but as a student-athlete, getting his degree and hitting it out of the park last semester when he could have wandered off to the NBA ground and never gotten his degree. He got six As last semester while he was traveling all over the country. Then Jakub, you know knowing how much he progressed after two years, and when players come to our program we talk about two guarantees we talk about them getting their degree and reaching their potential. We don't talk about the NBA or whatever, but trusting the process. Whether it's two years in Jakub's case, four years in somebody else's case, what you're giving it is you're putting in an honest day's work consistently. And we take a lot of pride in the fact that those guys did that. It can be done. I think that's something they look for when you're recruited. They all want to be in the NBA. If you've got a couple guys on your resume that can validate that, it certainly helps. But it's not nearly as important as how cool it was for those two and watching those two grow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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