Craig Smith talking all things @UtahMBB, Huntsman Center atmosphere, #Big12 + more

The head coach of the Utes, Craig Smith, on the program, Craig, how are you, sir?

But there's nowhere to go but up, I guess from that respective. But you know, we had a great summer this year. It was really unfortunate lost all three of our centers within eight days of our first game. We had to really reinvent ourselves and we were playing a way different brand of basketball than we've been we had been, and you know, it just it's not really how I like to play, certainly now being new to the Big twelve and being into it, it's really hard. I think

there's the same success that way. And we went back to the way we were playing all summer and most of the fall. And that's big right. Our teams, no matter where I've been, whether it's Utah State, South Dakota, Mayville State, we've always been an elite rebounding team. It's just what we've done. And now that we've played, you know,

inserted Jake Wallen into the starting lineup. You know, legit six nine, six ten with Ezra and sur I was a very powerful foreman and then lost and lovering at seven to one, you know, and then Keanu Dods is really impacting our program in a great way six ' nine and really long. I'm happy with how we're playing, you know, one four the last six. I had a tough loss at Houston and had a tough loss at home to Baylor where we just had a ton of open shots. We just couldn't make a shot that night,

and that happens in basketball. But I feel like we're rounding in the forum and we're doing some good things. And now we're going to continue continue at this weekend because winning on the road in the Big twelve is very very difficult U and so we're gonna have be ready to really compete on Saturday.

to play or I want to coach. And I always find it interesting when I am watching a team that's coached by a guy who I like and respect, like you, and I can remember when Quinn Snyder was here coaching those Jazz teams, when Rudy Gobert kind of evolved into this defensive stopper and they started him next to Derek Favors, and they didn't have a great offense, but Dennis Lindsay used to say, look, if they score seventy were fine scoring seventy two.

volleyball or whatever it might be. But I think as a head coach, you've got to really have the security of who you are, what you believe in try to recruit to that at the same time, you know, it's like for me, I've always had to be at, you know, situations when I've gotten hired that maybe weren't the quote unquote sexiest jobs, or there are harder jobs, or certainly you know, I've always been hired a place where they've been struggling. Unfortunately we've been able to flip it around.

So like I've always had to kind of adapt and adjust based off your personnel, right, based off your best players. Who's got talent. Uh So you've got to be able to fine tune some things offensively, certainly defensively as well. And you know, Paul, you know, the great obviously he's passed away for the legendary football coach Paul bear Bryant. You know, I I always tell you what a great player looks like, but I can certainly see it. And the first thing you got to do is get those

guys in the game. And and so you know, I've always remembered that quote and thought about it. You just got to find it. The talented guys that are all about the team, that create toughness things that you value, and then you figure it out. And I really value defending and rebounding, and I just think it's a mentality thing. It's a toughness thing. It's an edge thing. It's a

way of life. You can't do it somedays and that other days and showing up, you know, go to work when you don't feel like it, like you got to put the time in, you got to work hard. I just believe in those things. And so you know, we had had some success or that we were shooting a

ton of threes, too many for my liking. Not that I don't like making threes, right, but but it's just you know, the Iowa game, I got a little in Baylor at Baylor, and it was like, all right, we're going back to what I believe in, who we were about what we got to do. And then you know, being what's easy to forget, like this is our first year in the Big twelve, and every league is a little bit different, and so the Big twelve is certainly

different than the Pac twelve. You know, I had two years in the Big Ten, right, the Big Ten was more like the Big twelve, you know, back then. And so you learn what do you got to have? What are things you need to have? You know, where are we strong, where we got to get better at? And then what scheme do you have to have? Because there's just so much playmaking in this league. But it's awesome. I'm so glad we're a part of it. So anyway, going back to your question, you have to adjust to

your personnel. But if it's not necessarily who you are, that can be a difficult thing. And so every coach has a little bit different style and what they believe in it. You got to be confident with it and roll with it. And I like what we're doing at this moment in time.

little pushback. I'm not saying that Gabe is Stephan Curry. Okay, I'm not saying that, But what I'm saying is Steve Kerr oftentimes talks about, Hey, I want Steph to shoot five to seven quote unquote bad shots a game, right, Like, I don't mind him forcing up some shots because every night, every team, he is the first page on the scouting report, and Greg, as you know, everybody sells out to make

sure Gabe doesn't have space. And when he is open, if he misses an open three, I feel like it's the same feeling when another player misses an open layup, right, Because you finally get him open and Gabe doesn't knock it down, He's like, oh man, that was a chance. But what are you trying to do just to get him some space? Because the shooting percentages are down? But if you're not watching, you can look at the numbers and say, what's wrong with it? Well, what's wrong with

him is everybody's gapping them, everybody's blitzing them. They're running two and three out of them, right, So just conceptually, how are you trying to get Gab a little space so he can you know, knock down the shots, so you need him knocked down.

Is this a good play? Is it not? Because then I think, I just think I've just been around guys like that, and I know what happens, and so I'd rather have to have rain him back a little bit than you know, go the other way. And so listen, I've coached game for three years. This is my fourth year. I know what he is. I know who he is. He's certainly the alpha, so to speak, or option one A whenever the one's getting ready to playoffs. Even now, whether his numbers are you know what they are, they're

still putting their best depended on him. They're still saying, nope, we're not letting you get those you know, points or whatever. So he's had to adjust to that now. He's always been that guy last wilesho for the most part, he's been that guy for the last three years on the on the perimeter. But we've been able to play a little bit differently in the last few years. So listen, do I want him firing terrible shots? No, not necessarily. However,

I want him aggressive. So if he's going to take you know, he's going to take a couple of bad shots here and there, like, it's just what it is. I when I first got hired at Utah State, I used to have to tell Sam merrill Sam, because he was so I got to make the right play. I got to make the right play. In his mind, the right play was always you know, if I'm boom, And I was like, Sam, look around. This team needs you

to be super assertive and super aggressive. And so every now and then a bad shot, what you would deem a bad shot is probably better than you know, a cleaner look by somebody else. You know, telling him that is he was so engrossed in making the right play all the time, and I just wanted his mentality being a little more assertive or aggressive. And certainly after that I didn't have to tell him too many times. Right in a lot of ways, And look, what's you know

happened that way? So you got to know your guys, You got to know your team but I want our guys aggressive, not looking over their shoulder now. At the same time, with our team, I did have to really address that specifically after the Texas Tech game at home. I just felt like we were having too many guys just shucking up shots, and our shots selection was I would deem below average, right, and we just had to pull the reins back because we just were just, you know,

teams didn't have to defend us. It was two and three guys getting all the shots, and I just felt like our team wasn't built like that. Into our guys credit, We've done a way better job with our shots selection, including Gabe and what he's done. And he's still going to peel up, which I want. He needs to get shot. It's just a matter of time before he gets out of this slump. I just know it. And the other

night he showed some real signs. Went to the free throw line eight times seventh grade, made a months or shot with under two minutes ago to put us up to it's just a matter of time with Gabe. And then he just looked like, you know, sometimes when you got a you know, a fifth year senior, they feel like they got the weight of the world on him.

Like one of Gabe's superpowers is he can just let things roll right off his shoulders and just go play basketball, just go hoop, and just we had a really good talk about that last week and he just looked more himself where he's just going to play basketball and not playing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. So you know, you need scores to be aggressive and not overthinking, and it's just a matter of time for him.

creating an advantage for your team. And so now you got two guys to him, you're playing four against three. Once he delivers that ball, whether he pitches the head to the next perimeter player or whether he hits the short role. Right with the short role is the guy that right sets the ball screen and Lovering is an elite passer. So when we can get him the ball in the short role, that creates a real advantage for our offense. Or he throws it back and now we

can look inside or skip opposite and play. So it just creates a real advantage for our team on offense. Now he's got to tighten up with the ball. But he's become a much better playmaker slash decision maker. Even specifically the first half the other night, Oh my gosh, every time he touched it, they were sending two guys to him, essentially, and he was able to make a lot of the right plays that led to a lot

of easy dunks and wide open threes for us. So, just the threat for him, and it creates spacing right, spacing his offensive spacing and spacing his offense. And if you don't have good spacing on the floor, or if you can pick a guy or two out there that maybe can't stretch the floor, now you don't really have to card that guy, and you can really plug up the paint. And so he creates advantages just by simply being out on the floor. And the last thing I'll

say about Gabe, he's such a selfless guy. Two things. He's such a selfless guy. All the dude cares about his winning. He just wants to win, doesn't care of you know, he could. He had a lot of opportunities to go other places for more money over the summer, and he's like, coach, I am a running you. This is where I want to be right this. He's changed my life. I love being here, I love living here, I love playing in this program, I love playing for you, on and on and on, and I think it says

a lot about the guy. All the guys on our team respect him. It's such detail, but he in facts winning just by being out on the floor. And he's such a good mover without the ball, constantly moving, which frees up everybody else on the floor.

and there's been some of those nights. I mean, of course last year with YU as well, and they were ranked when we played I forget top ten, top fifteen, when we beat Arizona, Arizona's ranked number four in the country a couple of years ago. That was a really good crowd. And that was I think the night before our football team played in the Bowl Championship in Las Vegas.

But fans impact winning. I don't care what anyone says, Like players got to go make the plays, Coaches got to put guys in the right position, recruit you know, championship level players. Right, there's a lot of facets that go into everybody impacts winning, and so but when you come into an arena, and I remember I was an assistant in the Big Ten, the Big Ten. I'll never forget this stat. The Big Ten at that time. I

don't know where this is, like ten years ago. For I think it was twenty six straight years led the country in attendance. And guess what they also, for like twenty five of those twenty six years had the best home winning percentage within league play, within league play in the country. So like, what's Big ten country? Well, it's cold, it's born in the north, right, there's not a lot of crazy, you know, things to do because people want to be inside. So what they do they go to

sporting events, so they do. And so this those road environments and now being in the Big twelve, and it's early for us. But we started at Baylor, right, and they did a promotion they give up five thousand free tickets and it was packed because their football team was playing their bowl game that day December thirty. First. Then

we played at Iowa State. Oh my gosh, that place is electric, right, And then it was that TCU not quite you know, but it was still a good home court and we played well that night and one at Houston Electric. Right, So we've played some very tough conference road games and that night specifically when we played when we be BYU, oh my gosh, Like those are our guys who remember that the rest of the life. That was the sixth biggest crowd in the history of the

Huntsman Center, and so it was awesome. Your players feel it. They feel the energy, they feel the passion, they feel the caring, like there's a lot that goes into it. And so you know, we got to do our part. It helps to win, there's no doubt about that. But we do have an excellent brand of basketball. You know, we're top for most of the season, we've been one or two and assists. We really share the ball, I think now number six or number seven in the country.

So we have players that are willing to sacrifice and play shared basketball and connected basketball. And we all know this state is an amazing basketball state. The fans are passionate and you can look up and down, whether it's you know Utah, stay at Utah, BYU go all the way, like it's like people love basketball in this state. And so but they impact winning in a great way. It becomes a huge home court advantage and it can be daunting.

It can be very daunting when you're an opponent coming in because they see the games, whether they're watching them lit or through the coaches clips that they show, it can be a very daunting experience and it really tests your metal, you're discipline, your toughness, and so you know, that's what we envision, that's what we'd like to do. There's a lot of things that go into it, but fans impact winning without questions.

We had a couple of one guy specifically I had heard, so we kind of rotated some things and and and and then it got to a point where it's like, you know, you're playing some guys that just like Katie's young, Jake's young. It's easy forget those guys are only sophomore. Yeah, so especially Jake doesn't have a crazy amount of game experience. You know, Miro little doesn't have a crazy amount of game experience. So you know, Ezra is really starting to

grow into his own and figure some things out. And so I feel very good about you know, where we're at with our Uh, I guess you could say top seven. You know, the other night we played a little bit different. Lovering has been in some foul trouble here last you know, a few games, so we've had to kind of negotiate that a little bit the other night, Ezra had an amazing first half, had some constantly turnovers, and then he got his fourth file with about ten minutes to play, so

we took him out. But then, you know, Keanu was playing so great and Jake was playing really well, so it's kind of like, hey, you got to ride those guys, you know, and those guys are good players. So I'm excited.

I think we're finally kind of getting our footing, so to speak, with our role definition, who's doing what what what pieces seem to jell better with each other, who plays well off one another, and then and then there's some things we still got to figure out with a couple of spots, so to speak, and find consistency so we know exactly what we're going to get, you know, on a day to day basis.