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SALT LAKE CITY — Larry Krystkowiak does not beat around the bush. What he says is almost always precise, honest and well thought out. If you're confused as to what's been said, it's probably because you didn't ask the right question.
That’s not to mean Krystkowiak doesn’t hold things close to his vest; it’s more just a matter of when he feels it’s appropriate to share his plan and how. It’s a rare experience in the coaching world where coachspeak and cliche answers encompass interviews and press conference more often than one would wish.
Krystkowiak's honesty and no-nonsense attitude, however, is partly why the University of Utah basketball program is back to competing nationally. Four years after inheriting a less-than-stellar team and a new conference, Utah basketball is relevant and gaining support nationally because of his piecemeal plan.
But Krystkowiak does not necessarily buy into the hype surrounding his program, despite his team being ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press poll, and the favorability of the program being at a near Rick Majerus-era high.
Even before Krystkowiak’s team took the Los Angeles schools — USC and UCLA — behind the figurative wood shed and beat them soundly, he, with honesty and seriousness in his response, said he felt his team was not a top-10 team. Witnessing what Utah did to the Trojans and Bruins last weekend, it’s hard to see many teams better than Utah at this point in the season, but his point is still valid being the head coach and the person that knows his team the best.
To Krystkowiak, there’s always something to improve on — free throws, offensive consistency, defensive transitions — no matter how good his team appears to be or how much attention the program is receiving. And his players respect him for the critical, but helpful, teachings.
Even after big wins, none of his players jump to conclusions or talk about how good the team is; it’s always an acknowledgment that the game was favorable for them, but that there’s more to do as the season develops — just one game out of many.
Considering Utah's six-win season a few years back and where Utah is today, it's an accomplishment that should earn Krystkowiak more credit than he's already receiving as a once-in-a-lifetime coach — one that could rank among the Majeruses of the world.
Krystkowiak's focus and dedication to the plan were laid out well before any of the players stepped foot on campus during the recruiting process — an area where Krystkowiak is starting to develop a competitive advantage. According to latest projections, Utah has two potential first round draft picks in the upcoming draft and likely more in the coming years with his latest recruiting class.
Krystkowiak and those he’s hired on staff know how to recruit without skipping steps while looking ahead to the future. The approach to recruiting for Krystkowiak is personal, honest and straight to the point, even if it means flying thousands of miles to Austria to show a recruit how important he is to the program’s plan moving forward — an approach that is paying dividends as the season develops.
“They recruited me from the beginning,” freshman Jakob Poeltl said. “They recruited me for the longest of all the colleges who contacted me. I really got to know them. With the other colleges it wasn’t like that. And I really like the coaching staff and that’s what it was in the end. They came over to Austria, and it felt like they really wanted me, so that’s why I came here."
Even in-state athletes like freshman Brekkott Chapman, who had scholarship offers from BYU, Utah State, Cal, Colorado, Gonzaga, UCLA and Arizona, felt Krystkowiak’s personal approach and the dedication from the coaching staff was the difference in the recruiting process, and “how coach (Krystkowiak) and coach (Tommy) Conner were at almost every single one of my summer games and high school games, and all that kind of stuff.”
“The coaches were very personal with him (Brekkott),” Chapman’s mother Kim Littlefield said, speaking about the recruiting process. “A lot of the other schools he got letters from were just cut copies and stuff. He would get texts and kids being recruited by the same school would get the same texts. Everything from Utah was very personal. That really made a huge difference.”
Throughout the hard work and patience to build the program, Krystkowiak has a special team that could go deep in the NCAA tournament and challenge perennial powerhouse Arizona for the Pac-12 title. That model Krystkowiak has put into place has many outside the program looking to replicate for other budding programs looking to be relevant.
Considering Utah’s six-win season a few years back and where Utah is today, it’s an accomplishment that should earn Krystkowiak more credit than he’s already receiving as a once-in-a-lifetime coach — one that could rank among the Majeruses of the world.
