When the Utah Utes come to Tucson to play the Arizona Wildcats on Thursday, they’ll be facing Finnish phenom Lauri Markkanen for the first time.
But it could have been the other way around.
Markkanen chose to attend Arizona over Utah and North Carolina. It was kind of an upset for Sean Miller and company at the time because Markkanen had closer ties to the other two.
Lauri’s father Pekka played for Roy Williams at Kansas, and Lauri’s club coach, Hanno Möttölä, played at Utah. But neither of those ties swayed Markkanen to those schools.