After going 2-1 in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Runnin’ Utes are back home and will face Idaho State on Friday night.
Head coach Larry Krystkowiak hopes the team can continue to get the ball to Jakob Poeltl down low considering how successful he has been as of late, setting a new career-high against Temple with 32 points.
“[Poeltl’s] making some good progress, playing hard and dialed in,” Krystkowiak said. “[He’s] going to be one of our key weapons we’re going to lean on.”
Although the team does not quite know what to expect from Idaho State, Krystkowiak recalls that during a meeting between the two schools a couple of years ago, the Bengals used a lot of zone defense that gave the Utes trouble. However, with Poeltl being exposed to about three different types of defenses already, Krystkowiak is more than confident his big man will continue using his size advantage.
Against the Bengals, Poeltl is also expecting to use his height since Idaho State’s lineup is smaller than that of Utah’s. He is also hoping to build off of his performance over the weekend and wants to be consistent throughout the rest of the year. But he knows his team has plenty of things to tighten up.
“We got to step up our defense and our offensive execution,” Poeltl said. “We’re still making silly mistakes that we didn’t make last year, so we got to get back to that. I want to be aggressive again, and we got to be aggressive in the pain. Use whatever they give us, play smart.
Since the team has returned from Puerto Rico, they have been working on cleaning up their game. Against Miami, the players know they turned the ball over far too many times, and transition defense has been a key focus in this week’s practice.
“The last couple of days have been good to us,” Krystkowiak said. “Fix some of the fundamentals, try to fine-tune some stuff and get some serious practice in.”
While the team was on the road, they played on a grade school court. Due to the limited space, Krystkowiak is now more than happy to put in some work compared to the heavy schedule that the team opened up the season with.
Despite dropping out of the rankings this week, Krystkowiak is happy with where the team stands and expects his players to step it up Friday night.
“It’s been kind of a firestorm trying to get through a game, and fortunately we’re in a position where we’ve got a decent record,” Krystkowiak said. “Can’t say that we’ve dazzled in a lot of areas, but record-wise we’re doing okay, and we know we need to get a lot better.”
For now, the coaches and players are more than grateful to be back home.
“Business as usual for us with a couple of games coming up,” Krystkowiak said. “It is nice to get home — that was a long trip. But a couple of solid opponents coming up.”
Tip-off is at 7 p.m. MT.
@kbrenneisen