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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 24, 2017

Steve Prohm

Kansas City, Missouri

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Iowa State Coach, Steve Prohm. Coach, your thoughts about the upcoming season?

STEVE PROHM: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Appreciate everybody today. Kansas City last time I was here obviously was a special moment for our team and our program and our seniors.

The one exciting thing now is all those seniors are off and doing extremely well from our last two years and it's been a great two years and now moving on to year three we have a brand new group. We have eight new guys in the program now, three returners, Nick Weiler-Babb, Donovan Jackson and Solomon Young that are back and need to be in a leadership role and an on-the-floor coaching role to help these young new faces and we have some old guys, some fifth year transfers.

I think the biggest thing with our team right now somebody getting caught up in a lot of hype, but get to go work and working every day and slowly building the foundation of becoming a really good basketball team. You do that by getting in the gym and working and watching tape and individual workouts and attention to detail.

The one thing that people harp on right now is being picked ninth, but I think a lot of that stuff is you base that off of who is returning.

So no one has really seen these three guys play extended major roles. If you go back and look at the West Virginia game here, the championship game, those three guys were really instrumental in our success that night. If you look at the turn-around with our team last year, Solomon Young played a huge role in that. I'm going to lean on those three guys. We met all summer long once a week to establish leadership from those guys and to be player-driven. If you're going to be very good it's got to be -- the players have to be invested it and has to be player led and then the coach is behind them kinda pushing the buttons, but I'm excited about this opportunity this year. Obviously, I think it's a team that's going to get better from September to October to November and then on into Big 12 play.

Then I think we've got a great be opportunity with a great road environment to go to Missouri on national television and play in a game that's going to have a lot of hype to it with Coach Martin's first game and the Porter's first game and Tillman's first game so no better opportunity to not find out where we are as a team and win or lose what we have to do to get better from that point on.

Then we go right away from there to the ESPN Puerto Rico tournament which moved to Myrtle Beach and we have a great feel for three games in four days there. And I will open it up for questions, but looking forward to douche coaching this team and getting better throughout the season.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach?

Q. What is the next step basketballwise for Solomon Young? What's on his checklist?
STEVE PROHM: I think it's two-fold. I think it's don't forget what you're about because I think if you watched him play last year, whether it was at Kansas or whether it was here at the Big 12 tournament, he had a toughness and a motor about him that he made all big plays. His ball screen defense was terrific. His help side defense was terrific, he rebounded, he ran the floor. Don't get away from any of that. We've got to have that and more on that end. Hopefully we can expand his game offensively to where we can throw it inside and if he's not a back-to-basket sort of guy to catch and face and drive bigger guys.

Then the opportunity to play off ball screens and pick and pop and make the three or a 17-footer, you know, because that position, that fourth spot or number five, whatever you want to call it, has been instrumental in our play for last few years and really at Iowa State for the last five or six years.

Hopefully he can take a bigger step offensively without losing what I think is his core, and that's toughness and blue collar work.

Q. Steve, how has Lindell Wigginton looked? He has big shoes to fill, but he's a talented kid. How is he looking?
STEVE PROHM: I think he's been good. We had a second inter squad scrimmage Saturday and I thought he was really good. We played three 10-minute segments and his first 10 minutes I think it was great. But as any freshman you walk out of the gym and say, gosh, that was great today and then you have days when you walk out of the gym and say I need to meet with Lindell and keep him tight because the most difficult position to play especially as a freshmen is the point guard position. You're usually defending, you've got to defend one of the elite players. Last year in our league defending the point guard was brutal 1-8 or 9 in our league last year. So you've got to be great defensively from a game plan standpoint and on the ball and off the ball help side. And we want that position to score, but you have to facilitate as well. And our assist-to-turnover numbers have been so good that we've got to make sure we're making good decisions.

I think he's been -- obviously he's really talented and I don't want to put on the hype train and overdo the expectations. I think he has a chance to do some special things at Iowa State, but I want to take it a day at a time and people want to compare Monte or the last point guard or other point guards I've coached. I want just want Lindell to max Lindell out and if he does that we will be in a really good place.

Q. Can you talk about Nick Weiler-Babb and what he has to do to expand his game this year?
STEVE PROHM: I think Nick, first and foremost, he's a guy that has been around this program for a long time with his brother playing here, Chris, for being a redshirt my first year. The biggest thing that he can provide because his IQ for the game is so good is being a coach on the floor. Whether he's handling the ball at the be point or he's playing the 3 or the 2 or whatever the position on the perimeter. He knows what everybody should be doing, offensively and defensively, 1 through 5. So we need his coaching ability on the floor to make sure people are in the right spots with some of our youth.

Second thing, I think with his size and athleticism I think he can be a really good defender and offensively I think he can facilitate. The one thing I would like to see more from him and I think he knows that is offensively of really look to go score and put pressure on the defense whether that's from paint touches or that's from three.

Q. Have you had to spend any time managing the perception of your team to your players? You are picked low this year and that's different for an Iowa State team.
STEVE PROHM: We haven't talked about it. I was just talking about our media about it. I'm not too big of a hype guy from a standpoint and I'm not going to plaster it all over the locker room. Nobody has seen these guys in a different role so you can't prejudge anybody until you can see what they can do. I'm excited about the opportunity to really, you know, challenge and figure out how to make this team great. I think as a coach and as a player this is a great challenge for us and that's what you want as a competitor. We haven't -- like I said, I'm not a big hype guy, I think stance wins over hype, are we doing the right thing every day? Are we getting better? And if we do that good things will happen. The preseason poll is for Media Day and then the work begins.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, best of luck to you.

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