The biggest knock against Larry Krystkowiak's resume is his lack of recruiting. Talk to Montana fans and they'll tell you it's a big reason why he left the Grizzlies five years ago for the NBA - he doesn't like to recruit.
Of course, recruiting to Montana is different than recruiting to Salt Lake City. Krystkowiak said as much during his press conference here yesterday. The Grizzlies have a limited recruiting budget, are isolated from much of the country and, with the school being limited in size, recruits can't necessarily fulfill their educational needs.
As Krystkowiak put it, if a recruit was an engineer major, they would have to be crossed off the list because it was a program the University of Montana did not offer.
That won't be an issue at Utah. Add the coming move to the Pac-12 and it's entirely possible the program and its conference affiliation, recruits itself in some form.
Of course, as Jim Boylen and Ray Giacoletti found out the last few years, recruiting to Utah isn't necessarily that easy. Giacoletti decided it would be best to recruit outside the country for his players and Boylen, who initially won with Giacoletti's recruits, saw the players he brought to Salt Lake up and leave a year ago and then had to fill the roster with junior college transfers.
Neither strategy helped either coach, because both were eventually fired from the Utes.
Krystkowiak has to do something different if his outcome at Utah will be different than the two coaches before him.
And that starts with competent assistants who can recruit like the dickens and bring in the talent to get this program back to the top.
So his first real recruit at Utah, outside trying to keep as many players within the program, is to get the needed assistants to help build this program back up again.
If Krystkowiak's weakness is his recruiting, hopefully it doesn't hurt his ability to put together a good staff.