One-on-one with Dave Rose


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Tuesday night, the BYU basketball program will stage its annual postseason awards banquet, and in the days to follow, head coach Dave Rose will meet with his returning players for end-of-season assessments. As part of his campaign-closing routine, Rose has traditionally sat down for one-on-one conversations with members of the local media.

Monday, I met with Rose, who was at the same time pleased with his team's 25-10 record and NCAA tournament appearance in 2014-15, and wishful of a few more wins--and a few less injuries.

The season began with the loss of forward Jamal Aytes to ankle surgery, and after only ten games, big man Nate Austin was lost for the remainder of the season with a hamstring injury. Additionally, Kyle Collinsworth, Corbin Kaufusi, Chase Fischer, Anson Winder and Skyler Halford all missed games while injured, contributing to the implementation of ten different starting lineups during this past season.

Rose acknowledged that the injury woes probably kept the 2014-15 group from maximizing its true potential.

"You take the individual group and try to figure out what your potential was with that team to start with," said Rose "then look at how you finished. When you look at it from that perspective, you kind of wish that you had things go a little bit different for you."

By the same token, Rose is particularly proud of how the team rallied past health concerns to record the program's tenth consecutive 20-plus win season and eighth NCAA tournament bid in the last nine years.

"I think that you have to feel really pleased with the fact that these guys responded to a really tough situation," Rose said. "That's what I'll always kind of remember with this group is that it was a lot more difficult than what we had expected, as far as our personnel was concerned. We kind of fought through it and still kind of found a way to be pretty good at the end.

"When you get a team to the NCAA tournament, you have to consider the season a success; what you want to do is advance in that tournament. We played really well for a half in (the first-round game against Ole Miss in Dayton), and then the second half wasn't our best half...we kind of turned Ole Miss on.

"That's where you wish you could kind of change things, because advancing in that tournament is really special...special for your team and for your program and your guys. Hopefully the next time we get in that tournament we have more success."

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Rose on...

Tyler Haws: "He had another great season. It will be hard to duplicate the consistency that he had. I believe that we've got really talented players, but the three years following his mission were probably as consistent as any player that has ever played here.

"It was interesting to watch him perform under the pressure of this (BYU career) scoring record, and just watch him night after night after night just be so good at scoring points for our team, no matter what the defensive game plan was or how it was put together. To be a consistent scorer with all that kind of pressure on a team that gets to the NCAA tournament is quite an accomplishment."

--

Kyle Collinsworth: "His conversations with me have all been about next season, here (at BYU).

"Kyle has always been really good at picking a spot and trying to develop it and get better...he is such a versatile player that I don't really think that there's one thing he really needs to just dial in on.

"The most important thing is to continue to just work on his all-around game. He has improved every season, every year; his scoring has improved, his defense has improved, his rebounding has improved, his free-throw shooting has improved, and so I just believe that's kind of what the off-season is for him, to continue on that path to develop his game."

--

Picking up scoring slack without Haws: "We'll look in the direction of (incoming freshman Nick Emery), but obviously the returning guys we have are really good--Chase Fischer and Kyle Collinsworth, and with Zac Seljaas coming in and Jake Toolson, who didn't get a lot of time this year...he's got a great knack to score, then our post guys are all going to be better scorers. You add Kyle Davis, and Jamal and Nate to that group. I don't know if we'll find the consistency out of one guy, but I think we'll find an ability to consistently score."

--

Whether roster adjustments might be in store for next season: "For the most part, our roster is pretty much put together for next season." (Note: with 13 scholarships available, BYU currently has 15 players projected for next season's roster; Nate Austin is currently projected as a non-scholarship player if he returns on a medical-hardship waiver)

--

Chase Fischer: "Chase's game is something that is really valuable to us, in how we play and what we like to do, but I think he has great room for improvement to try and grow as a player.

"His confidence really grew this past season after a couple of years in Division One where he really wondered what his ceiling could be, and hopefully this summer he can kind of get back to that high-school swagger that he had, where the sky was the limit for him as far as his confidence level was concerned."

--

Jamal Aytes: "Jamal has kind of had a setback actually; he's gone to where he is non-weight bearing (on his surgically-repaired ankle). They're going to give him a little bit more time to give that micro-fracture surgery to kind of recover before we start going hard on it.

"It was pretty sore, he had an MRI and we saw an opportunity for it to heal a little bit better. It's always a concern; microfracture surgeries are always a little bit touchy, and hopefully the doctors are on it and we can get it going here in the next couple of months."

--

Corbin Kaufusi: "He really improved. He got better as the season went on. I think that his trajectory to being a really good player will really be based on if he can stay healthy. He missed a lot of early-season practice because of some issues and then he had an ankle issue that bothered him for a few weeks. What he needs is practice time, time on the court.

"You could tell, late in the year as he continued to progress and get better each game, for the most part he was in every practice and improving. If he can stay healthy, I think he has a chance to be a really good player, be an all-league guy for us."

--

Nate Austin: "We'll find out in a couple of weeks as far as the (medical-hardship) waiver is concerned, but his heath is the real issue--his back and his hamstring are the two issues. Hopefully we can get him on a program where he can strengthen those things, and then be able to make it through the full season."

--

Zac Seljaas and Jake Toolson: "They are similar players, have good length, and can really score in a lot of different ways; they can post up, shoot from the perimeter, stretch the defense...and they're good free throw shooters.

"Defense will be a key for those guys, and how they defend that position. We've scored a lot of points from that three spot in the last few years, so there will be a real opportunity."

--

Frank Bartley: "I think Frank is a really energetic, exciting player. I think he continues to get opportunities to play; it's still been pretty difficult, position-wise for him, playing him at the four most of the time. He continues to improve and is really trying to find a way to fit our system, and is working really hard at it."

--

(Incoming freshman/returning missionary) Braiden Shaw: "Braiden is a really active athletic guy; kind of reminds me of Josh Sharp, a guy who can fill a lot of roles and do a lot of things, but he really has an athletic side to him that will make him really effective."

--

(Returning missionary/sophomore-to-be) Cory Calvert: "Cory was a really good scorer in high school, and he had some games here where he looked like that could be potentially a big part of his game. We played him at the point his freshman year, and may play him a little more at the off-guard position and kind of see how he returns from his mission and how he flows back into the system.

"It's going to be tough to break into that (guard) group; I think we've got a really good core of guards with Kyle and Chase and Zac Seljaas and Jake Toolson and (Jordan) Chatman...it's a good group of guys."

--

(Redshirt freshman) Jordan Chatman: "We hope he comes back really strong; he looks to me like he's a little bit different player from the (knee) surgery than what we actually recruited in high school, but we've got a long spring, a long summer and we'll see how he develops."

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(Incoming freshman/returning missionary) Jakob Hartsock: "He'll be kind of similar to (brother) Noah; he's more of a perimeter guy than Noah, but he's good around the basket, and he has good athleticism, good lateral quickness, has really good timing, could be a really good defender."

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Spring/summer plans for his players: "They'll be around spring semester, then we'll start practicing for our (August) trip to Spain. We've always taken around nine or ten players (on foreign trips), and that's probably what we'll do again this year. Most all of the players will be qualified, but I don't think we'll take the whole group."

--

Defense: "Defensively, there are things that we can do to be a lot better. One is size--we need to be bigger, better at protecting the basket. They type of players that we get are pretty offensive-minded players, really skilled guys, and we can improve together as a group as far as our team defense is concerned.

"There were times I thought where it was pretty good (during 2014-15 season) and other times where I thought it really let us down. That will be something that gets really good detail and attention over the course of the off-season."

--

Replacing assistant coach Mark Pope and operations director Cody Fueger (Pope went to UVU as head coach and hired Fueger as an assistant coach): "Hopefully we can have our staff complete by the end of the month, first week of May. I think a lot of people understand that the future is pretty bright for our program and they'd like to be associated with it."

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2015-16 schedule: "It's coming together. Our preseason schedule is really important to us, and sometimes the best things break late. At the end of the year you want to look back at that and say 'we had a chance, the games were the right games.'

"That's one of the things that's real obvious about this past season's schedule: we had opportunities. We could have really helped ourselves with our NCAA seed with the opportunities that we had in our early-season schedule. Hopefully we can set up that same kind of schedule and be more successful in those games."

--

Whether team can improve on 2014-15 performance next season: "I hope so. Expectations inside of our program are really high. I think our guys were walking out of that locker room in Dayton really disappointed that we didn't advance (in the NCAA tournament), and that's what we want to do."

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