Utah Basketball: 5 candidates to replace Larry Krystkowiak as head coach

Damon Stoudamire

Let’s keep looking for more candidates because there are some great names out there. What if we looked in the WCC? This Utah job will likely not attract Mark Few or Randy Bennett and it’s hard to imagine Mark Pope leaving BYU after just two seasons. Instead, let’s look a little further down the food chain at someone who starred in the Pac-12 as a player back in the day.

Stoudamire was a fantastic point guard for Arizona in the early 90’s, became a 1st round draft pick, and played in the NBA for 13 years. He’s worked on the staffs of Sean Miller at Arizona and Josh Pastner at Memphis, while also briefly serving with the Memphis Grizzlies. His most impressive work has come in spending the last five years as Pacific’s head coach. The Tigers are seemingly buried in the WCC by those other top-tier programs, but Stoudamire has led them to a pair of top 4 finishes, including 23 wins last season.

Without relevant postseason experience, is Stoudamire ready to make the leap to a Pac-12 job? He was on a Pac-12 staff as recently as six years ago, though Pacific remains his only head coaching experience. Utah might be willing to take a leap of faith and his background is pretty similar to Krystkowiak’s. If he can produce a winning culture at a school like Pacific, it’s more than likely that Stoudamire can bring that level of success to the Utes.

We’ve completed our look at five potential candidates to be the next head coach at Utah; who do you think is going to take the Utes job and try to make this program relevant in the Pac-12?