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Determination, hard work make Kevin Criswell one of UM's all-time greats
By BOB MESEROLL of the Missoulian
If people look at Kevin Criswell and see a chip on his shoulder, so be it. He probably deserves it.
Here's a kid who leads his Colstrip basketball team to the Class A state title as a junior, then leads the state in scoring as a senior.
At 6-foot-2, he's not particularly big, he's not particularly fast, he's not particularly anything except tough, the way you expect an eastern Montana kid to be.
He's attended camps at Montana and Montana State, trying to improve himself and prove himself worthy of a scholarship to a Division I school. But the offers aren't there. A Wyoming junior college is looking like the best option.
But one night Montana Griz assistant coach Todd Schmautz comes to watch the kid play. Criswell responds with 47 points and 26 rebounds.
Schmautz bugs and bugs head coach Don Holst to take another look at the kid who'd been to three or four Griz Cage Camps. Holst is convinced the kid can play, but he's already handed out all 13 of his scholarships. The best he can offer is an opportunity to walk on with the promise of a scholarship for his second year on campus.
“Then he starts for four years and the rest is history,” said Holst, summing up the fairytale of a story.
History is the right word. The kid who no Division I school deemed worthy of an immediate scholarship will - barring injury - finish his career as the fourth leading scorer in the 100-year history of Griz basketball. The three players who will be in front of him - Griz coach Larry Krystkowiak, Micheal Ray Richardson and Bob Cope - have all been enshrined in the Grizzly Athletic Hall of Fame.
“I never expected to be where I am right now,” Criswell said.
Where Criswell is right now is six games from the end of his final regular season. He's made 197 3-pointers in his career, best in school history and sixth best in the annals of the Big Sky Conference. He's still in fifth place on the school's scoring list with 1,491 points, but with 10 more in Saturday night's game against Montana State, he would move past Griz assistant coach Wayne Tinkle into fourth.
He's having easily the best season of his career, averaging 15.6 points a game. He's shooting 48 percent from the field overall, 43 percent from 3-point range, more than 10 percentage points above his career average in both categories. Criswell is the leading active career rebounder in the Big Sky - remember he's a guard - and is ranked among the league leaders in steals.
Criswell has been blessed with talent, to be sure, but it's his drive and work ethic that have put him among the elite.
“A lot of it is internal, what's in his heart, his competitive nature,” Krystkowiak said. “It's a classic case of what some determination and hard work can accomplish.”
Criswell burst into the consciousness of Griz fans in a record-breaking season as a redshirt freshman, scoring 20 or more points eight times while breaking Gary Kane's freshman scoring record. In his sixth game as a Griz, some 5,000 fans packed Dahlberg Arena to watch the likes of Richie Frahm and Casey Calvary from Sweet 16 darling Gonzaga. They left wondering who this Criswell kid was who poured in 29 points on 10-for-20 shooting in a narrow loss to the Zags.
But like most overnight success stories, there was more there than met the eye.
Criswell is prone to ankle sprains and a bad one shut him down midway through his true freshman season. He was sitting out a redshirt season anyhow, so he had surgery in January that kept him out of action for nearly six months. During that time, the Griz made their improbable run through the Big Sky tournament in Bozeman, losing to Oregon in the first round of the NCAAs.
Then came the stunning news that Holst had been fired. That was followed by the even more stunning news that former Florida State and DePaul coach Pat Kennedy had been hired by his old pal Wayne Hogan, then UM's athletic director.
Fortunately for Criswell, Holst had made good on his promise of a scholarship, signing Criswell the previous November.
“I was lucky, because when Kennedy came in I couldn't play yet,” said Criswell, who believes Kennedy would have cut him loose if he hadn't already been tendered the scholarship. “I don't know if it was coincidence or fate, but it worked out.”
Kennedy, though, quickly became Criswell's biggest fan, calling him a “little Bobby Sura,” a player Kennedy coached at Florida State who went on to a career in the NBA. The Missoulian began calling him the “Colstrip Carbine” for his rapid-fire shooting.
“It went all too quick,” Criswell said of his freshman season. “I was just trying to understand what the game was like at this level. It was a totally different speed, quickness, strength; everything was on a totally different level.”
The accolades being thrown at him were nice, he said.
“But at the same time I really didn't think twice about it. We were trying to win games and we were in a pretty good losing streak there for a while, well really every year until last year. Kennedy, the things he said you had to take with a grain of salt.”
Kennedy and Criswell had a somewhat tumultuous relationship, particularly during Criswell's sophomore year, which proved to be Kennedy's last in Missoula. Criswell felt Kennedy wasn't enough of a disciplinarian. He took it upon himself to push his teammates during practice.
“We just couldn't mesh,” Criswell said. “Guys were complaining about this, complaining about that. I probably stressed a little bit. I guess I expected it to be that easy from my freshman year.
“My sophomore year, especially, I was getting on guys for every little thing. It hurt relationships with some of the guys. It was never personal. I was just so competitive out there. It's probably one of the biggest mistakes I've made being here.”
Enter Krystkowiak, who was hired to replace Kennedy. It didn't take long for the two Montana kids to form a bond.
Immediately after being hired, Krystkowiak scheduled one-on-one talks with all of the Grizzlies. Criswell couldn't wait for his.
“The first thing he said was he wanted me to help him understand how to be a leader,” Krystkowiak said. “I remember getting goose bumps and thinking, ‘OK.' Then we delved into what some of his experiences were. My comment was the best leaders lead by example and you better not have any expectations. Not everything has to be the way you're wired. I just told him to do his thing, play hard and for the people who are wanting to be led, he'll become a leader.”
“Coach K made a great point in that I expected other people to do what I do,” Criswell said. “He said that's not a fair way to look at things.”
The more mature Criswell and his teammates meshed much better during his junior campaign, which ended with a Big Sky tournament title and a date with top seed Washington in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The momentum generated at the end of last season carried over to this year, when the Griz won 16 of their first 19 games.
Sophomore Andrew Strait, the Grizzlies' leading scorer this season, is one of the players who's happy to call Criswell a leader.
“I've never seen someone who has such a competitive desire, on and off the court,” Strait said. “He's the most competitive person I've ever seen.
“Like playing cards, he's got to win and if he doesn't, it's going to ruin his day. Everything's a competition for him. He's also a leader. We need someone like him on the floor to keep our team balanced.”
One of the things that had been missing from Criswell's Griz resume was a win over rival Montana State in Bozeman. He crossed that off his to-do list last month, when the Griz beat the Cats 80-64, their first regular-season win in Worthington Arena since 2000.
Criswell's career numbers against the Cats are well below his career averages: 10.5 points, 3.6 rebounds, 32 percent shooting, 22 percent from 3-point range. But a win Saturday night would give him five victories in nine meetings, including a win in the semifinals of last season's Big Sky tournament.
“I'm just glad I got a win in Bozeman,” Criswell said. “It's so tough when you have those fans heckling you the whole time. I don't really focus (on stats) anymore. It doesn't matter how many points I score. It's just going in and helping my team win at this point in my career.”
That's the new, admittedly more mature Criswell speaking. He knows fans in other Big Sky towns might see him as a whiner - “It's not whining. I'm just talking to the refs out of respect. I want to know what they're thinking.” - but that doesn't deter him.
He has an interview Friday in Spokane as part of his application to physical therapy school at Eastern Washington. He'll interview with UM later this month. His 3.7 grade point average over the last two years should help him in that regard.
Criswell will marry fiancee Tawny Solberg of Opheim in July and honeymoon in Jamaica. He allows for the possibility of playing pro ball overseas, but “the opportunity's got to be good. To me, it's not worth it financially.”
If he's accepted to physical therapy school, that's probably the course he'll pursue. He'd like to eventually work with professional athletes.
“The example I give is when (NFL great) Jerry Rice tore his ACL and he was back in something like 90 days,” Criswell said. “I'd love to be around those specimens, to be a part of something like that, to help a person come back from a potentially career-ending injury.”
But there's work to do as a Grizzly first, like helping the Griz snap out of their current two-game funk.
“I saw an energy level out of him in practice (Monday) that I hadn't seen before,” Krystkowiak said. “We were exposed over the weekend. It was kind of a second-half debacle in both games and I think the guys potentially hit rock bottom. We just had a little different energy level (Monday) and Kevin was one of the guys communicating that.”
When the final buzzer sounds on this season, when the walk-on turned Grizzly great can sit back and reflect on his achievements, how would he like to be remembered?
“That's not for me to discuss,” Criswell said. “I would like people to know that Montana kids, especially eastern Montana kids, can be successful at this level. And I want people to know I did it for the right reasons. I was here to work hard and that's how I got everything.”
By BOB MESEROLL of the Missoulian
If people look at Kevin Criswell and see a chip on his shoulder, so be it. He probably deserves it.
Here's a kid who leads his Colstrip basketball team to the Class A state title as a junior, then leads the state in scoring as a senior.
At 6-foot-2, he's not particularly big, he's not particularly fast, he's not particularly anything except tough, the way you expect an eastern Montana kid to be.
He's attended camps at Montana and Montana State, trying to improve himself and prove himself worthy of a scholarship to a Division I school. But the offers aren't there. A Wyoming junior college is looking like the best option.
But one night Montana Griz assistant coach Todd Schmautz comes to watch the kid play. Criswell responds with 47 points and 26 rebounds.
Schmautz bugs and bugs head coach Don Holst to take another look at the kid who'd been to three or four Griz Cage Camps. Holst is convinced the kid can play, but he's already handed out all 13 of his scholarships. The best he can offer is an opportunity to walk on with the promise of a scholarship for his second year on campus.
“Then he starts for four years and the rest is history,” said Holst, summing up the fairytale of a story.
History is the right word. The kid who no Division I school deemed worthy of an immediate scholarship will - barring injury - finish his career as the fourth leading scorer in the 100-year history of Griz basketball. The three players who will be in front of him - Griz coach Larry Krystkowiak, Micheal Ray Richardson and Bob Cope - have all been enshrined in the Grizzly Athletic Hall of Fame.
“I never expected to be where I am right now,” Criswell said.
Where Criswell is right now is six games from the end of his final regular season. He's made 197 3-pointers in his career, best in school history and sixth best in the annals of the Big Sky Conference. He's still in fifth place on the school's scoring list with 1,491 points, but with 10 more in Saturday night's game against Montana State, he would move past Griz assistant coach Wayne Tinkle into fourth.
He's having easily the best season of his career, averaging 15.6 points a game. He's shooting 48 percent from the field overall, 43 percent from 3-point range, more than 10 percentage points above his career average in both categories. Criswell is the leading active career rebounder in the Big Sky - remember he's a guard - and is ranked among the league leaders in steals.
Criswell has been blessed with talent, to be sure, but it's his drive and work ethic that have put him among the elite.
“A lot of it is internal, what's in his heart, his competitive nature,” Krystkowiak said. “It's a classic case of what some determination and hard work can accomplish.”
Criswell burst into the consciousness of Griz fans in a record-breaking season as a redshirt freshman, scoring 20 or more points eight times while breaking Gary Kane's freshman scoring record. In his sixth game as a Griz, some 5,000 fans packed Dahlberg Arena to watch the likes of Richie Frahm and Casey Calvary from Sweet 16 darling Gonzaga. They left wondering who this Criswell kid was who poured in 29 points on 10-for-20 shooting in a narrow loss to the Zags.
But like most overnight success stories, there was more there than met the eye.
Criswell is prone to ankle sprains and a bad one shut him down midway through his true freshman season. He was sitting out a redshirt season anyhow, so he had surgery in January that kept him out of action for nearly six months. During that time, the Griz made their improbable run through the Big Sky tournament in Bozeman, losing to Oregon in the first round of the NCAAs.
Then came the stunning news that Holst had been fired. That was followed by the even more stunning news that former Florida State and DePaul coach Pat Kennedy had been hired by his old pal Wayne Hogan, then UM's athletic director.
Fortunately for Criswell, Holst had made good on his promise of a scholarship, signing Criswell the previous November.
“I was lucky, because when Kennedy came in I couldn't play yet,” said Criswell, who believes Kennedy would have cut him loose if he hadn't already been tendered the scholarship. “I don't know if it was coincidence or fate, but it worked out.”
Kennedy, though, quickly became Criswell's biggest fan, calling him a “little Bobby Sura,” a player Kennedy coached at Florida State who went on to a career in the NBA. The Missoulian began calling him the “Colstrip Carbine” for his rapid-fire shooting.
“It went all too quick,” Criswell said of his freshman season. “I was just trying to understand what the game was like at this level. It was a totally different speed, quickness, strength; everything was on a totally different level.”
The accolades being thrown at him were nice, he said.
“But at the same time I really didn't think twice about it. We were trying to win games and we were in a pretty good losing streak there for a while, well really every year until last year. Kennedy, the things he said you had to take with a grain of salt.”
Kennedy and Criswell had a somewhat tumultuous relationship, particularly during Criswell's sophomore year, which proved to be Kennedy's last in Missoula. Criswell felt Kennedy wasn't enough of a disciplinarian. He took it upon himself to push his teammates during practice.
“We just couldn't mesh,” Criswell said. “Guys were complaining about this, complaining about that. I probably stressed a little bit. I guess I expected it to be that easy from my freshman year.
“My sophomore year, especially, I was getting on guys for every little thing. It hurt relationships with some of the guys. It was never personal. I was just so competitive out there. It's probably one of the biggest mistakes I've made being here.”
Enter Krystkowiak, who was hired to replace Kennedy. It didn't take long for the two Montana kids to form a bond.
Immediately after being hired, Krystkowiak scheduled one-on-one talks with all of the Grizzlies. Criswell couldn't wait for his.
“The first thing he said was he wanted me to help him understand how to be a leader,” Krystkowiak said. “I remember getting goose bumps and thinking, ‘OK.' Then we delved into what some of his experiences were. My comment was the best leaders lead by example and you better not have any expectations. Not everything has to be the way you're wired. I just told him to do his thing, play hard and for the people who are wanting to be led, he'll become a leader.”
“Coach K made a great point in that I expected other people to do what I do,” Criswell said. “He said that's not a fair way to look at things.”
The more mature Criswell and his teammates meshed much better during his junior campaign, which ended with a Big Sky tournament title and a date with top seed Washington in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The momentum generated at the end of last season carried over to this year, when the Griz won 16 of their first 19 games.
Sophomore Andrew Strait, the Grizzlies' leading scorer this season, is one of the players who's happy to call Criswell a leader.
“I've never seen someone who has such a competitive desire, on and off the court,” Strait said. “He's the most competitive person I've ever seen.
“Like playing cards, he's got to win and if he doesn't, it's going to ruin his day. Everything's a competition for him. He's also a leader. We need someone like him on the floor to keep our team balanced.”
One of the things that had been missing from Criswell's Griz resume was a win over rival Montana State in Bozeman. He crossed that off his to-do list last month, when the Griz beat the Cats 80-64, their first regular-season win in Worthington Arena since 2000.
Criswell's career numbers against the Cats are well below his career averages: 10.5 points, 3.6 rebounds, 32 percent shooting, 22 percent from 3-point range. But a win Saturday night would give him five victories in nine meetings, including a win in the semifinals of last season's Big Sky tournament.
“I'm just glad I got a win in Bozeman,” Criswell said. “It's so tough when you have those fans heckling you the whole time. I don't really focus (on stats) anymore. It doesn't matter how many points I score. It's just going in and helping my team win at this point in my career.”
That's the new, admittedly more mature Criswell speaking. He knows fans in other Big Sky towns might see him as a whiner - “It's not whining. I'm just talking to the refs out of respect. I want to know what they're thinking.” - but that doesn't deter him.
He has an interview Friday in Spokane as part of his application to physical therapy school at Eastern Washington. He'll interview with UM later this month. His 3.7 grade point average over the last two years should help him in that regard.
Criswell will marry fiancee Tawny Solberg of Opheim in July and honeymoon in Jamaica. He allows for the possibility of playing pro ball overseas, but “the opportunity's got to be good. To me, it's not worth it financially.”
If he's accepted to physical therapy school, that's probably the course he'll pursue. He'd like to eventually work with professional athletes.
“The example I give is when (NFL great) Jerry Rice tore his ACL and he was back in something like 90 days,” Criswell said. “I'd love to be around those specimens, to be a part of something like that, to help a person come back from a potentially career-ending injury.”
But there's work to do as a Grizzly first, like helping the Griz snap out of their current two-game funk.
“I saw an energy level out of him in practice (Monday) that I hadn't seen before,” Krystkowiak said. “We were exposed over the weekend. It was kind of a second-half debacle in both games and I think the guys potentially hit rock bottom. We just had a little different energy level (Monday) and Kevin was one of the guys communicating that.”
When the final buzzer sounds on this season, when the walk-on turned Grizzly great can sit back and reflect on his achievements, how would he like to be remembered?
“That's not for me to discuss,” Criswell said. “I would like people to know that Montana kids, especially eastern Montana kids, can be successful at this level. And I want people to know I did it for the right reasons. I was here to work hard and that's how I got everything.”
