Kragthorpe: Utah, BYU, USU will write new basketball stories in 2015-16

Brandon Taylor stood beneath the banners celebrating the University of Utah's basketball history and talked strictly about the future.

"This is a new team," said the Utes' senior guard. "We've got to forget about last year. Last year was amazing … but we have to forget about it and get out of the shadow of last year."

Technically, last year is this year — Utah's Sweet 16 appearance came in March 2015, only eight months ago. Yet there's a good lesson in Taylor's words. College basketball programs evolve over multiple seasons, but every team writes its own chapter. For the 2015-16 Utes, Friday's game vs. Southern Utah is not just a case of following through after last season, it is the start of something the players hope becomes their own success story.

Conveniently enough, the season-opening schedule offers a glimpse of all six of Utah's Division I teams in an opening night unlike anything in the state's history: SUU at Utah, Utah Valley at BYU and Utah State at Weber State. By late Friday night, we'll all have a better sense of what these teams will look like, following coaching debuts of UVU's Mark Pope and USU's Tim Duryea and the first official appearances of BYU's Nick Emery, USU's Shane Rector, Utah's Lorenzo Bonam and other newcomers.

"We're going to have to create some new identities," Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said.

And that's the fascinating part of this season around the state. For all of the returning talent in the programs, there are the questions of how Utah will perform without having the basketball constantly in Delon Wright's hands, how BYU will replace Tyler Haws' scoring ability and how Utah State will respond to a coach other than Stew Morrill.

For the Aggies, the reminder that last year is over became a sobering throught last week in a 77-60 exhibition loss to Cal State Monterey Bay. The Aggies were "outcoached, outplayed, out-everythinged," by Duryea's account. Eventually, that performance either will be viewed as a launching point to better things or a foreshadowing of what was to come. The Aggies must regroup without sophomore David Collette, who intends to transfer.

Kyle Collinsworth will make BYU entertaining every night and the Cougars' box scores will be must-read material, as he pursues double figures in points, rebounds and assists. The last category is always the toughest to fill, and that will be more true without Haws' spot-up shooting. Yet the reality of replacing a prolific scorer is that more shots will become available to everybody else — and they'll take them.

Utah is intriguing, because so much revolved around Wright, an NBA first-round pick. Sophomore center Jakob Poeltl becomes the focus in presumably his last year of college basketball, and the question becomes whether he can improve as much as Andrew Bogut did in his sophomore season of 2004-05.

The Utes also will have to finish games better, after so many of their victories in Pac-12 play came easily last season. They were less successful when winning required grinding out possessions in the end.

On the way to the program's first NCAA Tournament win since Bogut's '05 team, the Utes have succeeded in making people care about basketball again on the U. campus. It's amazing how big college football has become around here. My first thought about Friday's schedule was how the matchups will be replicated Sept. 1, with Utah hosting SUU and Weber State visiting Utah State in football.

Until then, though, basketball will be worth watching. Utah, BYU and Weber State will make the 2016 NCAA Tournament, USU will play in a postseason event, UVU will finish in the top half of the Western Athletic Conference and SUU will stay in the lower half of the Big Sky.

Such forecasts are a case of skipping to the end. Between now and then, each team will write its own story this season.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com

Twitter: @tribkurt