The University of Utah men’s basketball team is about to tip off the 2021-22 season. Utah just went through one of the most turbulent offseasons in program history, which included a change at head coach and much of the roster transferring away. No one really has any idea just how good the Utes might be, who cracks the rotation, or how Craig Smith will fare in his first year as head coach. This is as complete of an overhaul as anywhere in college basketball, but there is enough here to be optimistic about the future of the team.

The only returning players who got consistent rotation minutes last season are Branden Carlson and Riley Battin. Lahat Thioune and Jaxon Brenchley made spot appearances but were not consistent features in Larry Krystkowiak’s game plan.

Both Gach returns to the program this year after a one-year stay with Minnesota. As far as we know, Gach has not yet been cleared by the NCAA to play, but that could happen any day now. He is still expected to be available for the season.

Eli Ballstaedt, Jack Jamele and Harrison Creer are also carryovers from last year, but none of the three ever appeared in a consistent role and are not expected to play much this season either.

That leaves the door open for plenty of new faces to earn a lot of action on this season’s squad. There is no official depth chart, and Smith has made sure to emphasize that nothing has been decided.

“It’s a wide open competition,” Smith said. “We’re mixing it up all the time to see what sticks and who has synergy … You’ve gotta earn it, man. I don’t care what your merits are or what your accolades are, that’s in the past … You’ve gotta go prove it.”

The Utes are deep at both guard spots and figure to experiment with multiple players. David Jenkins Jr. and Gach appear to have the best shot at the starting lineup in some fashion, with Rollie Worster, Lazar Stefanovic, Brenchley, Marco Anthony, Bostyn Holt and Gabe Madsen in the mix to challenge for one of their spots, especially if Gach is not cleared right away.

Stefanovic, Madsen, Anthony, Holt, and even Gach are all big enough to potentially play at small forward as well. Basketball is becoming increasingly positionless and one of these players will likely be the starter alongside whoever wins the competition at both guard spots.

For the forward and center spots, Battin and Carlson have the inside track. Dusan Mahorcic and Thioune will both likely be part of the rotation off the bench. Smith has wanted to experiment with two-big lineups featuring Carlson at power forward with either Thioune or Mahorcic at center.

“I definitely want to do that,” said Smith. “I think it’s going to be beneficial for our team, and so we’ve just gotta keep constantly working on developing chemistry within our lineup.”

All three of the bigs will play and Smith feels that each of them will have their role depending on matchups and which guards are in the lineup.

“We have three very different players at that center spot,” Smith said. “What we do like about those three guys is, they all bring something very clearly different to the table, they’re not all clones of one another, so as a result we will do different things when each one of those guys are in the game on both ends of the floor.”

Utah was picked as the 10th best team in the Pac-12 in the Preseason Media Poll. That spot makes sense for a brand new roster, but there is enough upside here for the Utes to potentially exceed that ranking. The Pac-12 is perhaps the most unpredictable conference in the country every season, so there’s room for some surprises once the ball is actually tipped off.

“It’s very familiar footing for me,” Smith said. “Polls are polls … Especially preseason when nobody’s tipped it off, there’s so much roster turnover all over the conference. It does tell you one thing; it tells you the level of respect that your program currently has at that time. The only way you get respect is you’ve gotta go earn respect.”

Utah is hoping to earn the respect of the rest of the Pac-12 and the rest of the country once they take the floor this season. It will be a tough task for a brand new, young team, but Smith has his players up to the task. 

Utah will tip off the season against Westminster in an exhibition game on Thursday, Nov. 4 at the Jon M. Huntsman Center.

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