Kevin Young has had a busy start to his BYU tenure, but the new Cougars head coach found a few open minutes Tuesday night to join “The Field of 68: After Dark” podcast and introduce himself further to the college basketball world.
“I don’t know if you need to get your sanity checked or not, but you decided to get in the college game when a lot of people are going the other way,” host Jeff Goodman told Young, who left his prestigious assistant job with the Phoenix Suns to take the reins in Provo. “But frankly, I bet the NBA game probably has prepared you for the craziness that is going on right now with college athletics.”
Here are some highlights from Young’s 12-minute appearance with Goodman.
On adjusting from an NBA workload to college
“I feel like I’m learning something new every five minutes. The more I’m doing it, the more I’m realizing how many similarities there are both to the NBA and the G-League in terms of the types of people you’re talking to on the phone to get information and get things done, so there are a lot of similarities there,” Young said.
On supposedly turning down a head coaching offer with the Brooklyn Nets to come to BYU
“Full disclosure, (the Nets) never actually offered me the job. Things were very, very close ... but (BYU) was something me and my wife had in the back of our minds for years. This was the only job in college I would have made the move for, just given the uniqueness of the university,” he said.
He continued, “Again, the unique nature of the school and the recruiting pool was something that I felt that if I did go this (college) route, this was the place for that.”
On how his family helped him decide to come to BYU
“I have three small kids, and the NBA life is very difficult from a family perspective. The conclusion we came to is that (college) is busy, but at least I’ll be home more,” Young said. “That was a big factor in why we decided to go this route.”
On his personal coaching style
“I was very lucky in the NBA world to coach a lot of elite players, all-stars and hall of famers, and my way of connecting with them was kind of being honest with them, and that was how I kind of gained a lot of those guys’ respect. So that’s my general approach, not a lot of fluff, being communicative, relationship driven and things of that nature,” Young said.
On his preferred offensive strategy
“I’ve always been an offensive mind, I like to play a fast, up-tempo five-out style, kind of a modern NBA type of vibe. My best years doing that were constructed around a rim-rolling big with a good point guard and shooters around that, so that’s kind of the genesis of how I like to play,” he said. “I grew up with a lot of the Spurs philosophy in terms of making quick decisions with the basketball, and that kind of morphed into my own personal philosophies.”
On the existing core at BYU
“We hired Chris Burgess, who had been an assistant here a couple years ago and was up at Utah, so his familiarity with our players here and with the school in general have been really helpful,” Young said. “We’re fortunate that Dallin (Hall) and Richie (Saunders) decided to come back out of the portal and play for us, that was big. We’ll be able to rely on the experience those guys bring from last year.”