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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYOctober 24, 2017Lon KrugerKansas City, Missouri THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Oklahoma Coach, Lon Kruger. Coach, your thoughts about the upcoming season? Lon Kruger: Thank you. It's great to be here. It's an enjoyable time, that four or five weeks of practice before we have to worry about games and playing time and everything else. Fun group of guys, still a little bit young, but we're working on maturing quickly, they have worked hard, energy, enthusiasm is great, looking forward to a hurricane relief game this weekend, then exhibition game November 8th and right into the season. Excited about what lies ahead! Q. Lon, there has been talk about Trae Young and what he can do for you. But how does having a player like that change what you are able to do offensively overall? Lon Kruger: Trae has outstanding skill. Anytime you've got a player like that, he's got an opportunity to make players around him better by attracting attention, by driving and attracting help defender and kicking. He's very fast out of the backcourt so he's creating some hopefully easy buckets in transition. He's made the transition very quickly, and, again, he's used to a lot of high-level competition through his high school and summertime ball, so he's doing very well. Q. Lon, you've had a lot of teams at OU that exceed rankings in the Big 12 preseason poll. Do you plays any stake in that or why do you think that's happened? LON KRUGER: I'm not aware too much about that, nor worried too much about that. We've got guys that like to play, they like to work at getting better every day and hopefully make progress throughout the season. In the Big 12 you have to do that because everyone else is doing that. Again, maybe not a lot of highly Heralded guys coming in recruitingwise, but, I don't know, other than that not too concerned about the preseason part of it, just hoping to get better every day. Q. I'm sorry, I don't know who you play Saturday? Lon Kruger: UT Arlington. Q. And also, I know Buddy, it took him four years to become Buddy Hield, but just for the sake of understanding about where Trae Young is, where was Buddy as a freshman compared to where Trae is now? Lon Kruger: Of course Buddy wasn't on the radar as Trae has been, so big difference there. Buddy from day one had the ideal attitude about doing whenever he needed to do to get better. He was out to prove something all the time and wasn't as highly heralded as Trae. Trae is very, very competitive but he's motivated in a different way of going out and proving that he is capable of doing all the things that are expected of him. Two different starting points but I think both equally motivate to work hard every day and do things well. Q. How has Trae dealt with the attention, the local kids stayed home from school, McDonald's All-American, how is he dealing with the attention? Lon Kruger: Seems to be doing very well with it. Again, he's used to it. He got a lot of attention as a junior and senior in high school and on the summer circuit, so it's not something that's new to him. He's done a really good job of making it about his teammates and making it about others, the program, and he's a guy that could go off individually and hasn't done that. He's very -- he's smart with regard to the value of doing things as a group and he knows, too, that he needs his teammates to play well and he's doing everything he can to help encourage them and motivate them to do everything they can and certainly his teammates appreciate what he can do. Q. Coach, when Jamie Dixon entered the league he came in with a lot of experience as you do. Do you think that made a difference for him in his first year? Lon Kruger: Well, always experience is good, no question about that. And Jamie of course has had great success everywhere he's been and did a great job last year and returns an outstanding group. I'm sure Jamie would give you a better answer than me. But no doubt that he knew what he was getting into and he's well prepared for it and delivered in year one. Q. What did you think of the first year he had? Were you surprised to see that success? Lon Kruger: That Jamie had? Knowing that Jamie was going to do a great job. Wasn't surprised to see him do as well he could and that's what he did. I think his guys stepped up and delivered for him, too. He had some guys I thought he instilled some confidence in. He instilled a level of expectation and I thought his guys responded well to him. I think that resulted in the success that he had, especially that late run was really pretty impressive and good for the league, too. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach, and good luck for the season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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