SALT LAKE CITY - Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak is responding to headlines this week claiming that the Utes pulled the rug out from under a recruit.

Thursday morning, Krystkowiak joined Salt Lake radio station 97.5 FM/1280 AM the Zone to talk to Hans Olsen and KSL's own Jeremiah Jensen about the Josh Hearlihy situation.

Hearlihy committed to play basketball for the Utes in November, but was recently asked by the Utah coaching staff to opt out of the letter of intent he signed after a further review of Healihy's health history.

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"I went out to watch him play in a game and he wasn't even playing," Krystkowiak said. "He ended up missing about half of his senior year."

Healihy ended up missing 14 games last season due to a medical condition related to rapid growth.

Healihy made a statement to the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, the day before the spring signing period began.

"I was very excited about going to Utah when I signed my letter of intent in November," Healihy said. "However, the coaching staff has reconsidered their commitment to me and has asked to be released from their obligation."

Because the story came out on the eve of signing day, many implied that the Utes were trying to make a last minute desperation attempt to get out of their commitment to Healihy, but that wasn't the case.

"People made the assumption that I called the day before signing day and said, 'You know Josh, you don't have a scholarship anymore', and that's not the way it's gone down. I reached out to his mother February 7 and said I was concerned, and we opened up a great dialog," Krystkowiak said.

Krystkowiak felt Healihy just wasn't quite ready to come in and compete at the D-1 level at this point, but went as far as saying Utah wouldn't be opposed to bringing him in next year.

"He's undergoing another procedure right now for his knees," Krystkowiak said. "It's a cross over between trying to do the right thing in terms of the commitment and the signed scholarship and also trying to do the right thing for your program."

"I wouldn't be opposed to continue bringing him in. I just needed to see him a system for a year or better proving he could be a D-1 athlete," Krystkowiak continued.

The Utes' head coach said that Healihy plans to go back to prep school and give his senior year another run, try and get healthy and land on his feet.

As for Krystkowiak, he admitted that the blame should fall squarely on him.

"This is a great learning experience for me. As a coach, getting into this business, you need to do all of your research and make sure you find out."

You can listen to the full interview with Krystkowiak here.

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