Spending a COVID-19-restricted freshman season with Utah in 2020-21, Pelle Larsson never had the chance to experience the Utes’ rowdy student fans.
The “MUSS” — that’s Mighty Utah Student Section — sits literally right on top of the visitor’s bench at the Huntsman Center, allowing students to heckle directly into a targeted ear or two, with customized signs and T-shirts often furthering their cause.
Larsson will finally get a chance to meet them Thursday, when second-ranked Arizona takes on the Utes, and he’s not sure how it will go.
Because he’ll be sitting on that visitor’s bench.
“I think it would be fun if they gave me a hard time,” Larsson said. “I think we’ve seen it a couple of times with ‘DT’ (Phoenix native Dalen Terry). He feeds off that energy and I’ve been kind of looking forward to see how that is.
“If they don’t, fine, we’re gonna play our game and do what we can to win. But it would be fun experience if they did.”
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd says he thinks Utah fans might actually take it easy on Larsson, who finished last season as the Utes’ starting point guard and only transferred after former coach Larry Krystkowiak was fired and most key players jumped ship.
“Pelle’s a great human being and I’m assuming the fans in Utah are respectful and understand,” Lloyd said. “A lot of things happened that ultimately had Pelle making the decision he was going to transfer. So I’m sure it’ll be great and I’m sure he’ll play fine.”
Arizona guard Pelle Larsson, left, and Utah guard Rollie Worster get tangled up chasing a loose ball during the first half of the teams' Jan. 15 game in McKale Center. On Thursday, Larsson — a Utah transfer — will play his first game in Salt Lake City as a visiting player.
Even Larsson’s roommates, the guys who helped him adjust to U.S. college life after he arrived from Sweden during the summer of 2020, are gone: Timmy Allen transferred to Texas and Alfonso Plummer headed to Illinois.
The Utes also lost Ian Martinez to Maryland and Mikael Jantunen to professional ball in Europe, while guard Rylan Jones headed to Utah State, where he new Utah coach Craig Smith had just come from.
Yet Larsson still stuck around Utah and worked out under Smith for two weeks before making his decision. He kept the window open to return to the Utes before ultimately becoming more intrigued with the idea of joining Lloyd and his European-influenced system at Arizona.
Larsson said he also was interested to see the Wildcats’ freshman core last season, guys such as Azuolas Tubelis, Bennedict Mathurin and Terry. Larsson grew up playing against UA guard Kerr Kriisa in national youth team competition; Larsson played for Sweden and Kriisa for Estonia.
However, as those familiar with Kriisa’s expressive style and talents might imagine, those two didn’t hit it off right away.
“I was never really friends with him. He was always the best guy on their team, so I was kind of mad at him for a while,” Larsson said. “But then we got really close. As soon as we got introduced to each other, we got really close.”
Larsson entered the portal on April 29 and committed to Arizona on May 9.
“I talked with (Smith) a lot about what he saw in the team and what he wanted to do,” Larsson said. “I kind of stuck around and gave it a real shot and then ... I told him I might come back.
“But then I looked at Arizona and for me it was a better fit and opportunity. It was something I had to do.”
Larsson probably isn’t going to melt if the MUSS does ride him, anyway. With Arizona, Larsson has overcome a broken foot that cost him nearly the entire preseason to become possibly the Wildcats’ most valuable reserve player, able to shoot efficiently from multiple levels, capably handle the ball and with the toughness and size to defend basically anybody from a point guard to a power forward.
That’s given Lloyd the option to insert Larsson more often at power forward if needed. Larsson’s defensive help allowed the UA to close out recent home wins over UCLA and Oregon.
It was not a surprise to Lloyd to have that option. Even though Larsson is usually regarded as a combo guard, he does happen to be 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds.
“Have you stood next to Pelle?” Lloyd said. “He’s as big as most people’s four-men, so I’ve got no problems putting him on anybody. I mean, we were working on a plan this year when we played Illinois — I don’t think we got to it — but there were certain segments of the game where he was gonna guard Kofi” Cockburn, the Illini’s 7-foot center.
“He’s a very versatile defender. He’s big. He’s tough. He’s physical. He takes pride in any plays with great effort. He checks all the boxes.”
Larsson said a growth spurt when he hit 15 helped him get to the point where he could guard big players and multiple positions. Then, at Utah, he translated all that to the U.S. game, saying he received help from the Utes’ staff and Jantunen in the adjustment.
“I’ve always been a defense-minded player, and I think that’s kind of under the radar for my game,” Larsson said. “I think a lot of Europeans that come here get a lot of hand-checking fouls and blocking files, and we talked a lot about that (last season). That was a big adjustment.
“I was kind of a liability in the beginning of my freshman year and then towards the end I was guarding the best guard on the other team. I think that was probably the biggest improvement I made last year.”
Through it all, Larsson has become mentally tough, too. Lloyd may have realized that again earlier this week, when he tried to tease Larsson for complaining about a sore neck.
It didn’t go over so well.
“I’m like, ‘I didn’t have you as being a guy that was faking an injury before he played Utah,’” Lloyd said. “He gave me a dirty look.”
As it turns out, there may be no other road game Larsson is looking forward to more than this one. Even as locked-down as things were last year, Larsson said he made good friends within the basketball program and came to know Utah’s Swedish golfers.
So it’s all good for him, regardless of how things go at the Huntsman Center.
“The biggest thing for me is just being able to see some of the guys, my friends on the team and people I met off the team,” Larsson said. “Fans didn’t really get to know me over there. I don’t think that’s the biggest thing.”
