Craig Smith looked out the window of his office overlooking the 50-year-old Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on a sunny day in June.
He took a few sips of his dark roast cup of joe while admiring the Utah campus and the rocky peaks of the Wasatch Front. Smith loves coffee. The Utes’ coach says he might even have a slight addiction to it.
“I drink at least two cups of coffee a day,” Smith told The Salt Lake Tribune, as he looked out the window, swirling the coffee around in his cup. “Honestly, probably three to four, but I’ve cut down on my cups.”
Last summer, however, Smith might’ve needed caffeine more than any time during his 28-year coaching career.
Before entering his high-pressure fourth season with the Runnin’ Utes, Smith brought in seven new players from the transfer portal. He also had three assistants leave for other destinations, the most notable being former Ute coach Chris Burgess who headed south to in-state rival BYU.
How would he put together a new roster heading into the Big 12, which had been the best basketball conference in the nation? How would he find chemistry with a rebuilt coaching staff?
Those questions, and more, came to a head in the offseason — even before Utah was picked to finish last in Big 12 play.
“There was about a three-week stretch there where it was like, ‘What’s next?” Smith said. “But, I just think, you have to have conviction as a head coach, you have to have conviction in who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in, and how you’re going to run a program. You have to stay steadfast with that.”
Heading into this weekend, Smith had the Utes standing with a 10-6 overall record. Back-to-back wins over OSU and TCU have brought Utah’s conference record up to 2-3, 10th best in the Big 12.
At every stop, Smith has found success. He went 79-55 at South Dakota, 74-24 at Utah State — where he made The Big Dance twice — and is now 60-56 with Utah. But, the landscape is different than it used to be when he first entered the profession.
NIL dominates recruiting. Relationships have taken a backseat. The old way of building culture is almost nonexistent.
Now, the programs with the most money attract the best talent. And the Utes have struggled with that for the last three seasons. Utah men’s basketball general manager Mike Summey, hired in June, told The Tribune the Runnin’ Utes have an NIL budget of “maybe a little more” than $2 million for the 2024-25 season.
That’s what some schools are reportedly paying top players across the country. In-state rival BYU, which Utah is set to face this weekend, recently made headlines after landing AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall recruit and a projected NBA draft pick.
He’s reportedly set to make between $4.5 million and $7 million from the Cougars. Kansas State reportedly paid forward Coleman Hawkins $2 million to join the Wildcats this offseason.
“In my first year here we had zero NIL,” Smith said. “The second year we didn’t have much more, so things are slowly progressing, but we have work to do on that end and we — just like [football] coach [Kyle] Whittingham would say it and every coach here — NIL, that’s a huge piece to what’s going on.”
Earlier this month, Utah athletics director Mark Harlan told the Deseret News he believes Utah men’s basketball has a “very healthy” NIL budget.
“We increased the budget for NIL by almost a 100-plus percent,” the AD told The Salt Lake Tribune of Utah’s men’s basketball NIL in July. “That’s a credit to the Crimson Collective and some incredible donors that really leaned in to help with some of the roster issues we were facing.”
But there is clearly work to be done.
“We have to make more strides in that area,” Smith said.
As Summey put it, “Everybody’s going to ask for more money.”
It also begs the ultimate question: Is Craig Smith to blame for the Utes’ struggles over the last four seasons? Or is the product of the financial support it gets from the university and its donors?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah men’s basketball coach Craig Smith speaks with his players during a timeout at the Huntsman Center on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.
‘It’s an open market now’
As balls bounced off the hardwood and assistant coaches prepared for practice at Utah State one morning, a red-eyed Smith waltzed through the facility after a recruiting excursion.
The trip wasn’t a regular one, however. It spanned three foreign countries and two states. Smith started by taking a private jet from Utah to Australia, where he conducted several home visits.
Smith then flew out of Sydney to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, then the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands, back to Chicago, and finally Sioux Falls, South Dakota, before returning back home to Logan.
Immediately after hopping off the plane, Smith then raced to Utah State’s facility to lead the Aggies during their first practice of the year.
“He’s pretty relentless when it comes to that stuff,” former Utah State assistant and now South Dakota head coach Eric Peterson said. “If he decides he’s doing something — especially if he needs to visit a kid — he’s doing it.
“He’ll do whatever he has to do.”
Over Smith’s coaching tenure, he’s built programs using his relentless recruiting style. David Ragland, a former USU assistant with Smith and now the head coach at Evansville, says Smith’s style translates to how he built relationships with players with Aggies.
“He wants them to be players,” Ragland said. “He wants them to play free, and he does a great job identifying guys that control, pass and shoot, and then he does a good job of teaching them how to play for each other.
“That breathes life into players.”
Sam Merrill credits his development into an NBA player with his relationship with Smith on the Aggies. The former USU guard is now playing significant minutes with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“He was a great example for me,” Merrill said. “His ability to be very prepared, that was what really, really helped us win a lot of games at Utah State.”
But college basketball is dramatically different than it was four years ago, especially in the Power Four.
Now, the House settlement has athletic departments across the country preparing for a revenue-sharing model under the umbrella of a $20.5 million salary cap.
“The difficulty is retaining players,” Peterson said. “It’s an open market now and kids can transfer year to year. The schools with the most money in their collective or program at the highest level are going to have a chance to be the most successful.”
Smith has still claimed some success in Salt Lake City. The 2023-24 campaign was the best season the program has had since 2017-18.
“We have improved every year despite what we’ve been able to do with some of the limitations,” Smith said. “I’m really proud of that. Nobody wants to hear this. We’ve got a little snake bit with some injuries at the end of my second year. We were right there to make an NCAA Tournament at the end of last year.”
The money magnifies everything in the Big 12.
Smith felt that heading into the season.
“Some guys can really recruit,” Smith said. “Some guys weren’t great recruiters at all back then, but now all of a sudden with NIL it’s really changed the game because you can have some really bad recruiters that are looked at as great recruiters because they are loaded with money. But, money talks now.”
But it wasn’t always that way.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah athletic director Mark Harlan attends a Utah men’s basketball game at the Huntsman Center on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.
‘Funds were definitely in place’
Former Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak can remember taking lavish trips around the country flying in billionaire donor Jon Huntsman Sr.’s private jet.
During those times Krystkowiak, former Utah athletic director Chris Hill and Huntsman, who died in 2018, were on a mission to build Utah men’s basketball a world-class practice facility.
After looking at some of the facilities in the country and securing $36 million in funding with the help of Huntsman, Utah finished construction on the project in 2015, giving the Utes a 101,000-square-foot facility, making it one of the best in the Pac-12 then.
“I was probably one of the luckiest coaches in America when I was working under Dr. Hill,” Krystkowiak told The Tribune. “We had a couple years to build a new practice facility. That’s a dream for a coach to be able to address. Those funds were definitely in place.
“It was really important for Jon to do. When we were going to build something, he wanted to do it right. I think through his donations to the program — and a number of his colleagues — we had a lot of great support from a number of people that generated enough money for us."
In 2015, Krystkowiak led the Runnin’ Utes to the Sweet 16. The former head coach later helped Utah to the second round of the NCAA Tournament with Kyle Kuzma, who is now on the Washington Wizards averaging 17.2 points per game, in 2016.
Rarely, if ever, did Krystkowiak feel a lack of support from Utah’s athletic leadership during his coaching tenure.
“Never in my time there did I feel like there was a shortage of money,” Krystkowiak said.
After Hill retired in the spring of 2018, Harlan took his place that summer.
Three years later, Krystkowiak was fired from coaching the Runnin’ Utes. Smith was then hired in his place.
“When [Chris Hill] left, we knew change was coming,” Krystkowiak said. “That change didn’t bode well for me, but I’ve got some pretty strong opinions, and it’d probably be best just to keep them to myself.”
Under Harlan, Utah’s men’s basketball program has yet to make the NCAA Tournament.
Now, with a struggling NIL situation, the onus falls on Smith to turn the ship around in one of the most competitive conferences in the nation.
“It’s hard for everybody, but that’s just what it is,” Smith said. “You go to some of these events, and people love to complain about this and that, and I’ve just never been into that. It’s just this reality. And you have to be able to adjust and adapt. It’s just the bottom line and you have to figure it out.”
And now Smith knows he’ll have to find success without signing top recruits.
“We would have had an unbelievable chance of getting one of these two guys that got $2 million,” Smith said. “But we don’t have $2 million. It’s just not in the cards for us, but we have the connections to make that happen. So that’s where it’s different than it used to be.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Craig Smith as Utah hosts Eastern Washington, NCAA basketball in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024.
‘Do more with less’
In 1996, at a restaurant in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Tim Miles sat across from Craig Smith at dinner.
Utah’s future head coach had just graduated college. He just married his wife, Darcy Smith, and was on the search for a coaching gig in college basketball. His meeting with then-Maysville head coach Miles, who is now the head man at San Jose State, was an opportunity to do just that.
“But we didn’t have any money. We didn’t have anything,” Miles said.
“We met one on one, and it was great. I thought to myself, ‘There’s no way I can’t bring this guy down here.’”
A week went by and Miles finally garnered the courage to break the news to Smith.
Little did he know that Smith had already moved in, two doors down from his place.
“He moved to Mayville without a job,” Miles said. “I couldn’t fire him. But I also couldn’t hire him. So I was on the phone with him like, ‘Oh, great, but s---, what do I do now?’ Eventually, we coached together that year, and it was wonderful.”
Smith made something out of nothing to start his coaching career.
In a way, he must now do the same with the Utes.
“Craig and I have actually talked about this,” Miles said. “I don’t know what Utah’s situation is, but in the Big 12, I’m sure there are pocketbooks bigger than Utah’s for men’s basketball. And so you’re going to have to do more with less.”
That’s exactly what Smith set out to do on the recruiting trail.
Pinch the pennies and find value where he could.
He brought in Mike Sharavjamts from San Francisco. He’s now Utah’s starting point guard, averaging 7.4 points per game.
Mason Madsen, Gabe Madsen’s brother, transferred from Boston College. He’s been a key sharpshooter in Utah’s rotation so far.
Baylor transfer guard Miro Little has showcased his playmaking ability in spurts, averaging 7.2 points per game and dishing out 4.5 assists per game.
But the Utes still lack a high-value talent to bring them over the top.
“We still want to recruit the way that we’ve always tried to recruit,” Smith said. “We want guys that fit our style of play in the way that we go about it, but you always have to be diligent about NIL and what prospective student-athletes are looking for and what their people are saying.”
That’s also why Summey was hired in a general manager position. To negotiate. To help allocate the right amount of dollars to certain players, while balling on a budget.
“It takes NIL, it takes fan support, and it takes outside entities buying into what we’re doing and, and we have a lot of that here. We’re always asking for more. We’re always working for more, and the more we get, the better we’re going to be,” Summey said.
“Player valuation is a huge component to this whole thing, because as important as it is to get your high money, high productivity guy. It’s also super, super important to get a couple of guys that are high productivity with low cost.”
Will it be good enough and fast enough for Smith?
At times this offseason, the coach would sip his coffee inside his office and wonder “what’s next” as former players entered the portal and longtime assistants departed for elsewhere.
It’s a question that won’t go away in the NIL era.
“It costs money to do what we’re trying to do,” Summey said. “Whether that be through NIL, or whether it be through budgetary means —or however else we’re looking at it — any outside help that we can get would help. You can see that from every university — in the state and every university in the country.
“Utah did a great job of hiring Coach Smith, and now we have to continue to give him the resources to build the best program that the University of Utah deserves.”
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