NCAA basketball: Top 25 highest-paid college basketball coaches for 2020

14. Larry Krystkowiak, Utah

Salary: $3,762,876 | Buyout: $9.75 million

Larry Krystkowiak enjoyed a long, moderately successful career as a player before he ever entered the coaching ranks. A big man who played his college basketball at Montana, he was a second-round pick in the 1986 NBA Draft and spent 12 years playing in the NBA and otherwise. Immediately after his final stop as a player with the Idaho Stampede, he hit the college coaching ranks.

He spent two years as an assistant coach at his alma mater before a year at Old Dominio. He then coached the Stampede for a year before returning back to Montana for two years as the Grizzlies head coach. Krystkowiak was an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks for a year and head coach for a year as well. Then, after a year off then, a year with the USA U-18 national team and a year as an assistant with the Nets, he finally ended up with the Utah Utes.

While Krystkowiak was an impressive 42-20 at Montana as a head coach, things weren’t immediately successful at Utah. He went 6-25 in his first season with the Utes and then 15-18 the following season. Utah improved to 21-12 the next season, though, and won at least 20 games in each of the next five seasons.

The last two years have been struggles for the Utes as they’ve gone just a combined 33-29 over that span. The hope is that Krystkowiak is able to get the program back on track as they had plenty of success in the mid-2010s under his watch.