BYU's Rose looks back, ahead

Two weeks to the day that his team's season came to an end in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden, BYU head basketball coach Dave Rose sat down with members of the local media for individual end-of-the-season interviews.

*******

Rose reflected on a season that featured

: BYU winning 24 games, giving Rose 20+ wins in all eight of his seasons as head coach, extending a school record for consecutive campaigns with 20 wins or more. Over the last seven seasons, BYU has averaged 27 wins. Before Rose's tenure began in 2005-06, BYU had recorded only one season with 27 or more victories.

: BYU playing in the postseason for an eighth straight season, and winning at least one postseason game for a fourth consecutive season, extending two more school records.

: Tyler Haws ending the season as the NCAA's 7th-leading scorer, while setting multiple programs records for sophomore scoring.

: Haws and Brandon Davies earning all-West Coast Conference honors (Davies has since enhanced his professional prospects with an MVP showing at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament).

Rose on Tuesday reminisced about his 2012-13 Cougars, and said that "what continually comes to my mind is that these guys just never quit--they never gave up."

"They stayed together in really tough times," said Rose, "and I mean where they genuinely enjoyed each other's company in tough situations--and that's a hard thing to do."

"What usually happens is a lot of blame sets in, and discouragement turns into discord, where guys separate from each other. But these guys hung together, and as a result of that, it really paid off for them in the end."

*******

The payoff was the opportunity to play on one of basketball's brightest stages at MSG, and the season-ending experience is one on which Rose looks fondly.

Saying that among the most impressive things about BYU's NIT run was the strength of the tournament field, Rose compared his program's previous NCAA tournament exposures to the recent run to New York City.

"Getting into the NCAA tournament is a beautiful thing," said Rose, "but people ask me: 'would you rather get a 14, 13, or 12 seed and get beat in the first round, or would you rather win three or four games in the NIT and get to the final four?'"

"My answer is: 'I'd rather get invited to the NCAA tournament and advance,' but there were some real satisfying experiences through the Washington win, the Mercer win, and the Southern Miss win, that we could have never experienced in the NCAA tournament--it would have been a whole different scenario in there."

Rose's only previous NIT experience was a loss at his alma mater in the 2006 event, as BYU dropped its tourney opener at Houston. The coach said that "ever since the Houston (NIT) game, it's been not on the forefront, but it's kind of back there that, 'if we ever get back in that NIT, we're not going go oh-fer.' I don't like that oh-fer. The fact we won three games in the NIT this year--that actually makes me smile."

Rose said the Cougars "really embraced the fact that we had a chance to play a couple more games in front of our home crowd--and we played really well. Then you go on the road and it was full there (at Southern Miss)--another full house. Those experiences are why you play college basketball."

"One thing I feel good about with this group of seniors graduating is that they all had the opportunity and experience of playing in the NCAA tournament, and that's what I want for all my guys. I want them to come in here and be able to experience that, because the bright lights of that tournament are special--and that's what we want for our guys every year. This (NIT) experience, with those three (seniors), with the tough spot we were in...they will always tell you, forever, that it was a great postseason tournament run that they got to experience."

Asked if Madison Square Garden was all it was cracked up to be, Rose told me "yes, it actually was."

"Most of the time," said Rose, "I experience things that I've wanted to do for a long time, and there's a little bit of...not disappointment, but you go, 'this isn't that cool.' Very seldom do I go out on the floor before games...but I spent 15 or 20 minutes in the Garden watching our guys warm up and watching their guys warm up. The interaction with the coaches and just an opportunity to think of the history of that building... and then the tip was pretty cool, too--and those are things that you don't really experience."

"You get in a place and you look at it, and 'that's pretty nice,' then you get in the game, and you get rolling, but the Garden was pretty special."

*******

A season that ended amid the bright lights of Manhattan began with with considerable uncertainty, as two veteran players expected to contribute had to call an end to their careers, due to injury. Before the first games were played, both forwards Stephen Rogers and Chris Collinsworth were sent to the sidelines for good.

"When we realized that we weren't going to have Chris and Stephen," Rose said on Tuesday, "we had a lot more question marks than what we thought, originally, going into the season."

"You figure that Stephen is going to be one of your better scorers, better shooters from the perimeter, and that Chris is going to be one of your better rebounders, and from that...you start scrambling a little bit. But as a staff, we had total confidence in the ability of all the guys to kind of rise up and be ready to go."

That said, Rose acknowledged that "going into the season, going back to those first two weeks of practice, there was a lot of shuffling going around, trying to find basically the right combinations, and it kind of went through the entire year."

"Injuries are the most difficult thing for me to deal with," said Rose, "because I believe that you can heal, recover and have a great career from there. I'm a guy who tends to give second, third, fourth chances on these things, because I know how determined guys can be as a result of it--because that's kind of how my career went."

"It was tough on those kids, their families, our staff and our team. The (players) are a close-knit group, and those (two) basically come in and tell them that their careers are over. Those were some difficult times."

*******

Rose on...

Early-season injuries to Anson Winder (ankle) and Raul Delgado (elbow): "When they actually came and started practice every day, they were so far behind some of the other guys, and I think it affected their individual years, as far as the seasons that they had."

"When (Winder) finally came back and felt good and got to be a hundred percent...we were just trying to find a place where he could help us, instead of him establishing a spot. Hopefully that's the situation next year, is that his experience (helps him) find a spot that he is really comfortable in and he can stay in that position. He really helped us, but from a second-line position, and not a top-line position. A lot of that was from the early injury.

"Same situation with Raul, and his was complicated even more, because all of the basic fundamentals of our program and what we put in as the core--he missed all of that during the September period, then he was trying to play catch-up all the way through. I think the real issue was that were so many basic core fundamentals and principles of our system that he never really grasped, and he was never able to play free--he was always kind of thinking one step behind instead of thinking one step ahead."

--

The play of 2012-13 newcomers Delgado, Agustin Ambrosino and Cory Calvert:

"We felt like the contributions they made to this year's team were substantial and really good, but going into the season we felt like there would be more contributions from those three. It's our job to try and evaluate and see why maybe that didn't happen the way we wanted it to."

"Aguie is one of the best perimeter shooting guys we have; the expectation that we had for him was that he was going to figure this out a lot quicker than what he really did. His ability to hit shots is not in question; how he fits in our system and when he can find that will probably determine the success of his senior year."

--

Cory Calvert:

"(Calvert was a) young point guard, right out of high school, trying to come in and beat out a player with a year of experience in Matty. Things didn't go exactly how we wanted it to go with Cory, but by the end of the year--last three or four games, you could see a little bit more of what we thought would happen throughout the entire season. as a staff, we need to do a better job and evaluate to make sure that things we believe and put together to help the team, that maybe we can work more towards that to make it actually happen."

--

The challenge of cultivating enough scholarship depth with the 2012-13 team:

"If you were guaranteed to hit a home run on every single (recruit), then you could make it through with eight or nine or ten scholarships. The bottom line is there are injuries, and there are setbacks, and there are learning curves, and there is game slippage, and there are all those things that come with every player: 'when is that player going to catch on, and when is he going to get it, and when does he feel totally comfortable so that his game can flourish in your program.?' Then, scholarship depth becomes a huge issue, and experience becomes a huge issue."

"That's one of the things that we've tried to do, since we started, was to have guys returning that you can count on, that know your system--now you're just trying to work on their game."

"You have big plans for (some players), and it doesn't really work out for maybe half a season, or maybe a year, or maybe sometimes a year and a half until they actually thrive in your system, that kind of sets you back a bit."

"We had a lot of things happen that were unexpected... but that's the nature of this job, to try and be prepared for everything that can happen, so that you can still put a team out there that can be successful. And what I really, really want our guys to understand, no matter what we start with, the expectation--the finish, is the same. I think they've done a great job of being consistent over the eight seasons that we've been together."

--

The potential of the 2012-13 team:

"I had a feeling all year long that something really special would happen with this group, and I didn't really know what it would be. You get some big wins, then you take a tough loss, then you take another tough loss, and you go 'my goodness, maybe I'm just out of touch with what this group is capable of doing.'"

"The disappointment of the quarterfinal defeat in the WCC tournament--the guys really responded to it and finished with as positive a note as maybe we have in all of the eight seasons, because of where we were."

"At the first of the year, if you talked about this (NIT) ending, everybody would have shaken their heads...but where we ended up near the end of the year, and where we finished, I really like the momentum that it has given us, going into next season."

--

The last-second home loss to St. Mary's in mid-January (BYU was 14-4 before that game, then went 7-7 over the 14 games leading into the NIT):

"Every year, when you get right in the middle of league play, it's a grind, and your guys--they love it, they appreciate it, your staff understands it...but there is a really fine line between four or five wins and four or five losses in league play, every year."

"(Even when) you're 14-2 or you're 13-3 (in league), you go back and look at four or five of those games, and they could have gone either way. The bottom line is in the years that you win those championships, they've gone the right way, the way you want them to go. The key for the success of this group was the fact that we had to learn to respond to some things that didn't go our way. That's what I'll always really remember about this group."

"Our record from that game on would tell you that maybe (the St. Mary's loss) did have a real significant effect on the outcome of the season, but there are a lot of those games that were a possession here or a possession there--the outcome could have been changed. The fact that there quite a few disappointments, and then to have your guys pick up and respond the way we did once we got to postseason...(that) is really gratifying to our staff, and hopefully will help us in the future, when we come to some real spots that might be disappointing."

--

Chasing Gonzaga in the WCC:

"There's a lot of pressure in league to kind of hold up your end of the bargain--what people think you're supposed to do--and then there's a lot of pressure to maybe jump to the top, and this year we had a team that was really good in our league that we were trying to overcome, with Gonzaga--which ended up being the number one-ranked team in the country...you talk about what really affected the outcome (of the season), the success of another team in your league sometimes can cause some real issues that you really can't determine."

"The pressure in league is real, and your guys really need to embrace it, and I felt that we competed really hard--we just came up short a couple of times."

--

Roster depth moving forward:

"One thing we've learned in the two years of the WCC is that we need to increase our depth, and that's on us as a staff. It needs to happen early in the year, and we just have to have more bodies available to us, late in a conference season, to try to protect our guys. That's tough, and it's a tough thing to do, because we're in a spot where we need to win every game to get our resume in a spot where if we don't win the conference tournament that we can still get an invitation to the NCAA tournament."

"That's a really delicate line that we're trying to walk through, and i think the last two years we're been a little bit thin at the end (of the season), and hopefully we can do a better job of increasing our depth."

"We put so much emphasis on winning every game that we play, and Tyler (Haws) played a lot of minutes--we rode him pretty good. I think he liked that, and I think guys like that responsibility, but I think it also can lead to some other issues, especially late in the year."

--

Brandon Davies:

"He's a special kid and a special player, and we've had an interesting ride in the four years that he has been here."

"Now he's on track to start his professional career, and (after) the first week (at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament), it's so far, so good."

"(At Portsmouth), it's the very best 64 seniors that want to go prove that they can play professionally, in front of NBA guys. It's kind of intimidating. They've played their careers in front of college coaches, and guys with college logos, and here there are all 30 NBA teams and a lot of international scouts."

"I'm proud of him. It's going to be a long road. He's going to learn that professional basketball is a lot different than college, with so much emphasis on the individual instead of the team. Hopefully he has a great summer and ends up in a great situation."

--

Whether Davies can turn himself into an NBA draft pick:

"Yeah, absolutely. Right now the odds are against that, but he can work his way through it."

"The best thing you could do is go back (to Portsmouth) and become the most valuable player of the tournament. If he goes to the next camp and runs into the best scenario of that camp, and then starts his individual workouts with teams--which he will get, because he interviewed with about ten or 12 different teams back there, and a lot of those teams committed to him that they want to bring him in and work him out--if the best scenario happens in each situation that he progresses to, he will get drafted. He's got to stay on a roll."

"Right now, there's a lot of talk about Brandon Davies, and most of it is 'surprise' talk. Now what you need to do is get it to be where people feel the same way--that he actually is an NBA player. Where he fits, and how he fits, or does he fit in the draft, or is he a free agent...we'll wait and see on all that."

"(The NBA's Chicago pre-draft camp) is probably the biggest goal for him right now, and it's kind of out of his control because you won't play a lot between now and when those invitations are extended in the next two weeks. There's no way to trick your way into Chicago. NBA teams have a list of who they want there, and that's who shows up there. We need to get Brandon in enough GMs' curiosity level that they want to see him there."

--

What needs to happen for BYU heading into the 2013-14 season:

"There are quite a few things, but right now, we're really excited that for the first time in three years, we'll actually have our most consistent offensive player returning. We've found a really solid start to what I think will be a tremendous career for Tyler Haws, to finish."

"Our focus really needs to be on the defensive end...our primary defense moved from man-to-man, game-plan, double-teaming in the post, to where went to a lot more zone this year. A lot of that was personnel, trying to protect Brandon in the post, with foul trouble. There were times, and teams, where we really needed to guard them man-to-man, and weren't good enough--we need to be better at it. Hopefully we can go to playing man-to-man as our primary defense."

"A lot of that will come with fundamental work during the offseason; a lot of it will come with our roster and personnel. You talk about Kyle Collinsworth returning as a perimeter defender, and we all get really excited, because of his length and his athleticism and his versatility."

--

The possibility of any unanticipated roster fluctuation in the off-season:

"It is possible, every year. I usually wait until the end of the semester, but I'll bring all of the players in, individually, and we'll talk about the season, we'll talk about their goals, we'll talk about how the season went and what we see for their future here, and what they need to improve on...sometimes those conversations, when we come through those things, there is some attrition in that."

"We'll see--that will probably be in the next week or so, ten days. Finals are next week, so when we get to the end of the semester, and we've gone through all of the players and had all of our end-of-the-year interviews, we'll probably have a better idea of what our roster will potentially look like next season."

--

Matt Carlino and Kyle Collinsworth:

"Matt has proven to us that he is a play-making guard. What we want to do is maximize his talents, we want to expand his game. There's a lot to be said about the versatility of your guard line, and I think that we've been, in the last couple of years, maybe, not as versatile as we would like to be, and I think we can expand on that. I think that Kyle has a lot of versatility in his game, and has the potential to play the lead guard spot, and the I think we can find a real comfortable spot for how they play. Their natural tendencies are a little bit different."

"Kyle's natural tendency is to share the ball and get a lot of people involved; Matt really likes to finish plays himself."

"I'm excited about the possibility of playing those two guys together and how that will work."

--

His definition of 'lead guard':

"The guy who's got the ball in his hands in transition and is trying to make that initial play in transition. I think there's a real talent in guys being able to look up and advance the ball, and then there's another real talent to be able to run your team in the half-court."

"I think Kyle can really help us in pick-and-roll offense with his size and his ability to see the floor, and how well he passes the ball, so I'm really excited about the potential of our guard line. You're bringing two guys (together) who I feel have the potential be a starting point guard for us into the program, and one has a full year of experience behind him on a team that won 32 games, and then Matty obviously has two years of experience, so it's a little bit different than what we've had the last couple of years, where we're wondering if maybe one guy can crack through and learn our system. Both of these guys have played a lot of minutes; we're just excited to see the potential of where this will lead."

--

Incoming freshmen big men Eric Mika and Luke Worthington:

"This is no disrespect to any of our (current) post guys, because they've been brilliant and they've worked really hard, but it's going to hard to find a pair of guys that have worked any harder than these two guys (Mika and Worthington)."

"These guys are high-energy, physical, they run the floor, I think they'll be really good players in this league. The front lines in this league are really big and really physical, especially the best teams in the league. I think these guys--their energy, their effort, their style, will fit really well. Experience will be an issue; they haven't played at this level yet, but you're going to see guys who can screen hard, they can roll hard to the basket, they both have really good hands, they're really good at rebounding outside of their area, so we're excited for these guys."

"It's going to be really hard to score the ball in the post as well as we have with Brandon and Noah (Hartsock) the last couple of years, but I think these two guys will play as hard and give us as that physical presence in the post that we really need."

--

Returning big men Josh Sharp, Nate Austin and Ian Harward:

"With Josh and the improvement he made this year, and the run that Nate made late in the season...these younger guys are going to have to come in and beat them out, because they're experienced, they understand our system, and I think they found a niche in our program, in how they can really help us."

"Ian didn't get a lot of minutes during game time, but his last month of practice showed a lot of improvement. His issue is his ability to consistently stay healthy and be able to practice, and hopefully that's something wee can kind of work through."

--

The basketball future of football-crossover Bronson Kaufusi:

"Bronson really gave us a lift with our guys, and it only really worked because it was Bronson. Bronson's personality is that he's such a likeable guy, and he fit really well. Right now, I don't know what the future is with Bronson; we haven't sat down and talked about it. I really am appreciative to him, for what he gave us."

--

The 2013-14 Cougars:

"We hope (to be better); that's our goal. I think there are a lot of really good pieces that are returning; it will change the way we play a little bit, and our style will have to adjust to our personnel, but the success of next year's team is always a blend of how the returning guys improve and then how quickly these new guys can jump in--because one thing at BYU is every year, you need the new guys to come in and catch on quick.

"You very seldom have seven returning players that have all started, or nine players that all played a lot--there's a lot of attrition. Maybe it will change here with the new mission rules...there will be more consistent rosters all the way through, but for right now, we need returning guys to really improve and the new guys to catch on as soon as possible."

--

*******

Related topics