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SALT LAKE CITY — Following an extended practice on Tuesday, Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak entered the players' lounge at the Jon M. and Karen Huntsman Basketball Facility and sat down at the nearest table, unloading his phone and two unopened water bottles onto the stone-colored surface.
Sitting exactly one month out before the season-opener against Prairie View with a host of new faces populating Utah’s roster, Krystkowiak also emptied his early impressions on who might lead his new group.
“I don’t maybe take a normal approach when it comes to leadership,” Krystkowiak said. “I could go in our room, I’ve done it before, and say, ‘Hey, how many of you guys are leaders?’ And three, four, five guys raise their hand. And then my next comment is, ‘So that makes all the rest of you guys followers.’
“To me, it’s not white or black, or either you are or you aren’t. I expect everybody to lead in different ways.”
Krystkowiak, 53, enters his seventh season as head coach facing the unenviable task of replacing the team’s leading scorer for the third straight season.
With a Kyle Kuzma-sized gap to fill this time around, conjecture holds that senior forward David Collette, who averaged 13.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks in 22 games last season, will be the Runnin’ Utes’ centerpiece in the coming season, though that remains to be seen.
For his part, though, Collette said he is confident and ready to handle the role of leader in his final college season.
“I don’t want to have any regrets, especially it being my last year,” Collette said. “I think there have been times in my freshman year especially, looking back, there were probably games where I was like, ‘Man, I could have done more, I could have gave more.’
“I think I’ve grown a lot. So for me, it’s that idea of leaving it all out there. Going out and leaving a last good year behind me so that I feel accomplished with my college career.”
Collette, who entered the draft and worked out with the Utah Jazz over the summer before returning for his senior season, said one of his goals for the upcoming season is to be more effective in his outside game — something he worked a great deal on over the summer. For context, Collette took a team-high 66.8 percent of his shots at the rim last season, according to hoop-math.com, while only taking three 3-point shots all year.
While he notes that he’s already seeing marked improvement with respect to his outside game, Collette understands that there is still work to do as the season progresses.
“Still room for improvement,” said Collette. “But obviously that’ll come as the season goes on. I’m happy with the work that I did over the summer.”
As with every new group in college sports, the early stages of the season present the familiar challenge of integrating some fresh faces into the program’s existing system, while also expanding the roles of its current residents. While Utah isn't suffering from the same volume of turnover it endured last season, the recent offseason still represented a changing of the guard for the program.
In addition to losing the aforementioned Kuzma to the NBA, Utah also lost Lorenzo Bonham to graduation along with a pair of outgoing transfers in Devon Daniels and JoJo Zamora. Accordingly, the Utes welcomed five newcomers into the program during the offseason and will likely deploy four new starters on opening night as a result.
In the interim, Krystkowiak is enjoying the challenge of mixing the new with the old.
“Bringing the new guys up to speed in terms of a lot of the terminology and what’s expected,” Krystkowiak said of where his focus lies with integrating the new guys. “With the guys that are returning, put them in a position where we can take advantage of what it is they do well.
“There’s freshmen that are, you know, there’s a lot of mistakes. But the good thing is they’re not making those mistakes over and over. It’s just that the learning curve is real steep for them. But the guys are doing a real good job of playing together and sharing it. I’m pleased with where we are.”
Despite being perceived as a team filled with relative unknowns, the bar remains high for those on the roster in terms of what can be accomplished this season. After missing the NCAA Tournament last year following consecutive appearances in the two prior seasons, Collette mentioned a return to the Big Dance as a teamwide goal while also stressing the importance of competing for and winning a Pac-12 championship.
“I’ll tell you, I do want to win a Pac-12 championship,” Collette said, adding, “and I think we can do it. I think we have the right team to do it.”
