Prior to 2018, Larry Krystkowiak’s NIT history was nothing but heartbreak. First round losses his junior and senior seasons at Montana. First round losses in 2014 and 2017 at Utah. The man could not win an NIT game.
But…then he did. Kind of.
You see, Krystkowiak wasn’t on the sideline when the 2018 edition of Utah came back against UC-Davis to announce to the Saint Mary’s Region Regional Semifinals™ on the back of Justin Bibbins (Bibbins update: sounds like he played in Hungary’s top league this past year—no big deal). He was gone in the first half, having tossed a stool on his way out (the seating instrument—not a piece of human waste). An argument could be made that Krystkowiak shouldn’t get credit for that win, because he left when it looked like Utah might lose. An argument could be made that Krystkowiak should get double credit for that win, because stool-tosses are hilarious. Either way, Utah won, and the lads never looked back, trampling LSU, dispatching Saint Mary’s, and evading Western Kentucky before falling to Penn State on the grandest of stages. No, Larry Krystkowiak didn’t get an NIT championship in 2018. He did, however, get his career NIT record briefly back to .500.
There’s talk that 2021 might be Krystkowiak’s year to do the darn thing and win it all. Me? No, I’m not saying that. But I am saying he’s got a chance. So, I guess I am saying that. Forgot I included the word “might” in that sentence.
Utah wasn’t very good this year. They hardly finished above .500. They lost by more than twenty at Coastal Carolina in November (the court, to be fair, was disguised as neutral). Three days later, they let Tulane beat them. And lest you think they were just a young team figuring things out, they finished the year with seven losses in nine games, one of which came to the same Cal team that lost in a scrimmage to an East Bay high school squad while playing its starters (ok, I made that up, but it’s possible it happened and we just haven’t heard about it yet because nobody pays attention to Cal basketball). No, Utah wasn’t just bad at the beginning of the season. They were bad the whole year through.
There were, however, bright spots, as there are for so many bad teams playing difficult enough schedules to have lots of chances to get a win that an NIT blogger can unironically call a bright spot. They beat BYU. They beat Kentucky. They scored 143 points against Mississippi Valley State back when Mississippi Valley State was testing the application of the theory of relativity in a basketball context. The pieces for an NIT run were there. And with Both Gach transferring (as is the towering Matt Van Komen, and by the way, Gach also might stay in the draft, I think—not sure he’s withdrawn), the pieces for an NIT run are still there, because Gach could have pushed them higher than NIT champions want to go from November to February.
In short, consider Utah firmly on the NIT radar. Not in the center of it. But there.
Also, Larry Krystkowiak’s a large human being, so don’t get in the way of his stools.
