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When Larry Krystkowiak reviewed scouting film this week on his flight to Cincinnati, he hoped for something deeper than understanding his upcoming opponent's tendencies: osmosis.
The Utah basketball coach sees a lot he can learn from his next foe, No. 13 Xavier.
"I've got a lot of respect for them, and that's why we're playing them," he said. "That's why we're always trying to play the Butlers, the Wichitas — teams I want to be like."
The Musketeers (7-2) don't register as one of the big brands of college basketball, but they should. The hidden giant of the Big East has had success in plain sight, with a track record that puts it in rarefied air.
Xavier has been to 10 NCAA Tournaments in 11 years, reaching the Sweet 16 five times in that span. In the last 25 years, the program has the 10th-best winning percentage (.705) in Division I, with 21 seasons of 20 wins or more. In 16 years at the Cintas Center, Xavier has won 87.4 percent of its home games — good for the fifth-best home winning percentage in the country.
Last season, national coach of the year Chris Mack led the Musketeers to a No. 2 finish and a No. 2 seed in the Big East, the conference of which it has only been a member since 2013.
And Utah is next on the schedule, set for a Saturday afternoon tipoff on FOX.
"I think anybody that understands basketball knows what goes on at Xavier and knows that it's a basketball place," Krystkowiak said. "It's a Butler, it's a Gonzaga. When I hear 'Xavier,' I think basketball. I think most people do in the sports world."
A basketball-first school, the attitude is just different at Xavier, Mack said in an interview with The Tribune.
The Cintas Center has enjoyed 137 sellouts since it opened, and fans are dedicated. It's not uncommon for Mack to be stopped around Cincinnati, his hometown, and get asked by strangers, "How is the team looking?"
Mack played and coached at Xavier long before he got the top job, replacing Sean Miller in 2008. He, as much as anyone, understands the awesome responsibility he wields. There's no football program on which to deflect attention, but he prefers it that way.
"While other coaches may have gone on to higher profile jobs, I've always been comfortable being in my hometown where they really support the basketball program," he said. "We wouldn't have it any other way."
Like Utah, the Musketeers recently experienced the "quantum leap" of moving up to a major conference. But Xavier didn't quite have the growing pains the Utes did.
The program has finished in the top six and gone to the NCAA Tournament every year of Big East membership. Last season, Xavier enjoyed a 28-6 record and won all but one home game, including a 90-83 win over eventual NCAA champion Villanova.
As one might expect for a protege of Miller, Mack has made defense and rebounding his calling card. KenPom ranks Xavier as the No. 22 team in defensive efficiency, and the No. 7 team in defensive rebounding — two areas where Miller's Arizona teams have hampered Utah in the past. The squad also boasts top-flight talent, highlighted by returning third-team All American Trevon Bluiett, a sharpshooting guard.
It's no surprise, perhaps, that Mack found difficult scheduling a power-conference opponent to play a home game this year.
A scheduled return date on a Big East-Big Ten rivalry series fell through this season after Xavier travelled to Michigan last season. When Mack was scouring the country for opponents to bring into the Cintas Center, Krystkowiak stepped up to the challenge.
"Not only did he agree to a home-and-home, he said, 'We'll come up there first,' because we needed a home game,'" Mack said. "I'm grateful to Larry, and I think that says a lot about him. It's a high-profile home game for us."
Some of the luster has come off Xavier in the last week: The program is coming off back-to-back losses Saturday against No. 4 Baylor and Wednesday at Colorado. Mack said he made peace with the fact that Xavier would go through some rough patches when he set the non-conference schedule, which KenPom ranks as the 39th most difficult nationally. Citing words of wisdom from one of his coaching mentors Skip Prosser: "You don't cut your teeth on oatmeal."
Utah is only just moving past the oatmeal course of its schedule, looking to break Xavier's streak of 27 straight nonconference wins at home. Over 10,000 passionate fans (one of whom might be Bill Murray, father to Xavier assistant Luke Murray) will offer Utah's stiffest challenge yet in the team's first road game of the season.
"There's a reason this game's on the schedule: to get our attention," Krystkowiak said. "It's going to be one heck of a test."
Twitter: @kylegoon —
Utah at No. 13 Xavier
P Cintas Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Tipoff • 3:30 p.m. MST
TV • FOX
Radio • ESPN 700
Records • Utah (6-1); Xavier (7-2)
Series history • First meeting
About the Utes • Utah's last true nonconference road win came on Dec. 4, 2014 at BYU. ... Utah is the No. 1 total rebounding team nationally with 47.7 rebounds per game, and junior Kyle Kuzma ranks 15th nationally with 11.0 rebounds per game. ... Utah has allowed opponents to shoot only 35.6 percent this year, good for No. 6 in the country.
About the Musketeers • Xavier has won its last 27 nonconference games at home and has won 50 of its last 55 nonconference games at the Cintas Center. ... The three leaders in the Big East in minutes per game are all Musketeers: Edmond Sumner, J.P. Macura and Trevon Bluiett. ... KenPom ranks Xavier as the No. 7 defensive rebounding team nationally at a 78.3 percent rate.