When Lauri Markkanen took a recruiting visit to Utah in the fall of 2015, it wasn’t hard to see a potential fit.
Markkanen’s club coach in Finland, Hanno Mottola, was a standout player for Utah in the late 1990s. The Utes were in the process of putting a fellow European big man, Jakob Poeltl, into the NBA Draft lottery. And Utah, of course, also has some winter weather that more closely resembles Finland than Tucson does.
Yet Markkanen said Arizona “is more like home here.”
Why?
“I liked Utah when I was there but I think this is a much better place for me,” Markkanen said. “In general, I have a better relationship with the coaching staff and players. I like it overall, and I like the apartment we’re living in.”
Markkanen said Mottola did not “push Utah for me,” leaving Utes coach Larry Krystokowiak on his own in a tough recruiting battle that also included North Carolina (whose coach, Roy Williams, once coached Markkanen’s dad at Kansas).
"I love the kid on and off the court and his family,” Krystkowiak said this week, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. “We had a great time here on his visit and I went over there. We lost out to a good basketball program. I'm not excited to play against him, but we'll see what happens.”
