Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Runnin’ Utes received votes in the USA Today men’s basketball Coaches Poll, which released its preseason rankings Thursday.
The Utes received 26 votes, which would put the basketball program as the 30th best projected team coming into the 2014-15 basketball season. Despite the team’s improvement last season, the Utes never received votes in the Coaches Poll.
The last time Utah was ranked in any poll was during the 2008-09 season when the program was ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
Utes head coach Larry Krystkowiak talked about the preseason hype surrounding his team two weeks ago during a media day press conference. Krystkowiak said the increased attention surrounding the team doesn’t change how the players and coaches look at the season.
“It doesn’t change what we do as a staff or a team. There’s preseason polls and we didn’t pay too much attention to them when everybody picked us 12th and the variety of places we’re being picked right now,” he said. “But we’re certainly not going to start thinking that’s very important when it wasn’t before. We continue on the same mission statement since we’ve been here: We’re waking up every day trying to figure out a way to get better and challenge ourselves individually and make our team better.
“Nobody is ever going to place more expectations on myself than I am myself,” Krystkowiak added. “You can play the underdog role or maybe the target role, it doesn’t change our approach one bit, and I think our guys understand that.”
The Runnin’ Utes will face four teams ranked in the Coaches Poll Top 25, including Arizona (2), Kansas (5), Wichita State (11) and San Diego State (17). Opponents also receiving votes include Stanford, UCLA, Oregon and Colorado.
