What Kevin Young said in his latest ‘BYU Sports Nation’ appearance

The most popular man in Provo has spoken.

New BYU basketball coach Kevin Young — already beloved by Cougar fans for his immediate and impressive recruiting successes — appeared on BYUtv’s “BYU Sports Nation” to discuss his roster, coaching staff and more.

Here are some of the notable highlights from Young’s interview.

On the skillsets of some of the team’s new players

• “Kanon (Catchings) is an amazing shooter, (he’s) got great size, high release, tough to block his shot, big time athlete.”
• “At this point, feels somewhat well documented what (Egor Demin) brings to the table, but unique size and skill level for that level of length, his ability to handle the ball, pass, be a playmaker, and then pairing him up with some of the other guys that we have is exciting for us.”
• “(Mawot) Mag’s obviously a tremendous defensive player, very experienced, big and strong. Actually bigger than I thought he would be, usually it’s the other way around, usually they shrink on the plane. But he’s a good size.”
• “And Elijah (Crawford), first of all, great kid, great personality, really brings a lot out in the group. He’s had a really good summer so far, gives us a little bit more dynamic ability with the ball in his hands.”

On recruiting international star Egor Demin to BYU

“When I first got the job and I was trying to figure out staffing and so forth, my goal was to get people that had ties and connections and so forth all over the world, and we were able to do that with the staff that we were able to get done. It was kind of some conversations about who might be some of those international targets once we had some of the staff put together. (Egor) was at the top of that list.

“The basketball world is a pretty small one, so a couple of calls here and there ended up being some connections and so forth that we could kind of lock into. Then I think the staff did a really good job of the recruitment and tying into all of our networks and so forth. I’m really happy that it got done.”

On what he likes about his current roster

“I like the character of the group, something that we’ve added quite a bit with every guy we’ve brought in. That’s something that’s very similar to the way NBA teams operate. I mean, the amount of intel that NBA teams have on players is really impressive. They will actually dip into that a little bit. If a guy comes on my radar, there’s a few guys I can call in the NBA that will send me crazy amounts of information on that player, their circle, their coach, what all people have said about them. So the character of our group, I think, is really high.

“Everyone understands the BYU way, and we’ve been mindful of that. I think we’ve done a good job of putting together a team of guys that fit in terms of different skill sets and things like that, and that’s probably got me excited the most.”

On the chemistry within BYU’s new coaching staff

“Most of these guys didn’t really know each other, certainly hadn’t worked together before, with the exception of a few of them. But I think the staff has gelled really well. I think people can feel that when they’re around us. … I’ve been on a lot of different staffs in the NBA, right? The most fun times I’ve had as a coach is when the staff all gets along and everyone’s rolling in the same direction, and that’s really fun. When it’s not that, I think the players can feel it. And so I tried to do a good job of getting guys that I thought would all mesh well together.”

On the new hype surrounding BYU’s program

“You can feel the excitement in the community, on campus. It’s been really impressive, honestly, just how much people care about what we’re doing, whether that’s fans, people on campus and so forth.

“A lot of people have come out of the woodwork that I haven’t talked to in a long time, that would just drop, ‘Hey man, I love what you guys are doing.’ But also in the NBA world as well, I’ve had a lot of people hit me up like, ‘Man, that’s cool what you guys are doing so far.’ So obviously a ton of work to do still, but it’s been cool for people to be this excited about BYU basketball.”

On his personal expectations for year one at BYU

“I’ve always struggled with expectations and the idea of like what expectations are, honestly. If you’re supposed to do this, then you try harder to do that, or if you’re not, you know what I mean? What I expect is for us to show up every day and try to be — and it sounds extremely coach-y, and I try not to sound super coach-y all the time — but just literally just try to be the best version of ourselves that day and get better, and the next day show up and get better.

“One thing Monty Williams said every day when I was with him, every single day, is good days add up, and that’s kind of what I expect. I expect good days to add up, and where we end up, we’ll see. But the one thing I do expect for our group is just to not believe in what people say. Whether we’re ranked here or we’re ranked there, we want to be the best that we can be, and we can climb the mountaintop just as well as anybody else. So why can’t we do it? It’s kind of the way I see expectations.”