Perseverance leads to 'surreal,' 'validated' season for Utah


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PORTLAND, Oregon — With seconds ticking down late in the game, the Runnin’ Utes had already stamped its ticket to the next round of the NCAA tournament — a Sweet 16 berth. The eventual victory over Georgetown would be the culmination of hard work and perseverance 10 years in the making.

The players couldn’t hold it back anymore after the final buzzer sounded and let themselves celebrate an important victory and morale booster for a team dogged by end-of-season struggles and losses. Sweet 16 shirts were handed out as the team celebrated its victory center stage at the Moda Center in Portland.

“It’s surreal. It’s a feeling I’ve never felt before,” Brandon Taylor said. “I’m just super proud and I’m happy for our team. You know, we worked so hard in the summertime. We’ve worked so hard. To be rewarded like how we are right now, going on to the Sweet 16, it’s just amazing. It’s an amazing feeling. It feels good.”

The feelings of excitement from the players and coaching staff seemed to be more than just a tournament game victory high, but a realization that the program had in fact succeeded in its rebuild and was charting territory that hadn’t be covered since the likes of Andrew Bogut or Keith Van Horn and Andre Miller.

“I think our kids have really latched on to that concept,” Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak says, speaking about the player’s ability to buy into the rebuilding process and the slow progress it would take to get where they hoped it would be. “Now we look around and it’s like, pinch me, here we are. It’s been a fun run with a lot of these guys that have been a part of it.”

The road to the Sweet 16 was in question late in the season after the Utes lost three of its last five games of the regular season and a semifinal matchup against Oregon on a buzzer-beating shot in the Pac-12 tournament. Maybe Utah hadn’t made the progress from the year before, was a phrase hovering around the program, particularly as the overall success and level of competition of the Pac-12 was called into question.


We've worked so hard. To be rewarded like how we are right now, going on to the Sweet 16, it's just amazing. It's an amazing feeling. It feels good.

–Brandon Taylor


Krystkowiak, though, never wavered in his approach, nor did his players. Instead, the team used the late-season struggles as a learning experience to get better and motivation for a tournament run, even when doubted against a lower-seeded Stephen F. Austin team.

“As a coach, you always want to keep your guys on edge and you want to be able to validate. We’ve been talking all year long about the little things,” Krystkowiak said. “I do know we had our guys’ attention. You have to experience those losses and maybe feel some of that pain before you can really clamp down.

“I noticed a different focus in our guys’ eyes, and they realized because all of a sudden they’d experienced what it felt like when you miss a free throw blockout or they experienced what it was like when you screwed an out-of-bounds play up and it cost you a three at Oregon,” Krystkowiak added. “It helps the coach validate those things.”

While it would be difficult to consider Utah’s season anything but a success even had they not made it to the Sweet 16, it was the extra validation for players like Delon Wright who nearly left the program after last season to try his hand at the NBA. To Wright, it was the best decision to make.

“It means a lot. You know, if I would have left, I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity to come back and play in the NCAA tournament,” Wright said. “Now that I’m here, we’re going to the Sweet 16, it makes me more happy with my decision. And I couldn’t be more happy with the team’s success.”

The season, though, is not over and Utah will be forced to prepare for a storied program in No. 1 Duke — the other Coach K — next Friday in Houston, Texas. And Krystkowiak said his team is excited and “honored” to play the team.

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