Looks like Stephen Weigh is back to his old self.

The former Utah forward enjoyed a spectacular professional debut with the Rockhampton Rockets in his native Australia tonight, erupting for 30 points and six rebounds in nearly 40 minutes off the bench in a 101-59 season-opening victory over the Toowoomba Mountaineers in the second-division Queensland Australian Basketball League.

Weigh left the Utes in the middle of last season, you'll remember, while battling a sprained knee and riding an 0-for-16 shooting slump. He wasn't expected to be healthy for much of the rest of the college season, so he chose to return home, get healthy and take a shot at a pro career.

Certainly, it's off to a promising start.

Coach Jim Boylen has said all along that he wanted to hire assistant coaches who desperately wanted to join the Utes -- not guys who didn't share his passion for trying to rebuild the program or felt entitled to the job.

And judging by one phone call, I'd say Stan Johnson fits that description.

Boylen hired Johnson today, and Johnson spent several minutes telling me how much loves the state and how much of a hard time he gets from his friends in California because of it. But he said he grew up a rabid Utah fan -- the Taylorsville High graduate was friends with Murray's Britton and Jeff Johnsen, he said -- and longs for the opportunity to help build the Utes into a college basketball power again.

"I've been around Utah basketball when it was at its peak," he said. "I know what's possible there. Coach Boylen has a great vision, great passion, and I myself am very passionate about the state. We can get Utah basketball to what it's capable of, not only competing for conference titles but nationally, doing some great things."

The 29-year-old Johnson grew up cheering for the Utes, and graduated from Taylorsville High School in 1998 -- the same year the Utes played in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament.

"I was probably never good enough to play there," Johnson said. "But I know I'm good enough as a coach now to come back and help them."

One down, one to go.

Coach Jim Boylen has hired Cal State Northridge's Stan Johnson to fill one of the two vacant assistant coaching positions on his staff that were created with the departures of Marty Wilson and Chris Jones in recent weeks.

The 29-year-old Johnson basically will replace Wilson, on account of his connections among California schools. In fact, Boylen said Johnson will start recruiting some of those schools for the Utes tomorrow morning.

"The biggest thing for me is that he kind of shares my vision of Utah across your chest meaning something," Boylen said. "He wants to be here, he's passionate about being here. He understands our state and he's excited about what we trying to build. I'm excited about it."

Johnson is a native of Salt Lake City who graduated from Taylorsville High School and played basketball at Southern Utah -- in fact, he helped the Thunderbirds win the Mid-Continent Conference championship and reach the NCAA Tournament in 2001. He played his final college season at Bemidji State in Minnesota, where he also started his coaching career.

After one season coaching at Bemidji, Johnson coached three seasons at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri before joining the Matadors less than a year ago. Obviously, that doesn't comprise the most glamorous resume, so he must have really impressed Boylen with his hunger and dedication.

Meanwhile, Boylen said he's hoping to fill the other position on his staff by next week.

Uh-oh. Looks like Larry Krystkowiak made the wrong choice.

Having interviewed for the job to coach the Utes before athletic director Chris Hill hired Jim Boylen last year, Krystkowiak turned down the overtures in order to accept the promotion to head coach of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks for which he'd been leveraging the Utes' interest.

And now, Krystko is out of a job.

The Bucks fired him after today, after going just 26-56 in his only season. Center Andrew Bogut -- the former Utah All-American -- told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel the biggest problem with the franchise is maybe no so much with the coach.

"We just need to bring someone that's going to buy into the system," Bogut said. "I think all 12 guys need to buy into the general manager's system and the head coach's system. If we don't do that, it doesn't matter if we hire Phil Jackson; it's going to be the same thing. If we get a group of guys that is willing to win and sacrifice individual accolades for the team, I think we'll be all right."

Of course, Krystkowiak is probably going to get a pile of money in the buyout. But he certainly would still have a job, had he taken the Utah job when he had the chance. Another article today notes how Krystkowiak probably isn't going to be the only one leaving the Bucks organization.

"The guy who hired Krystkowiak, general manager Larry Harris, only had a year left on his own deal," the Associated Press noted. "So that essentially meant Krystkowiak had only a year to get things turned around -- or the guy who hired him would be gone, and in would come a new general manager with his own thoughts about who should be head coach."

Make it three.

Point guard Tyler Kepkay will join teammates Kim Tillie and Luka Drca in spending time training with teams representing their home countries this summer. Director of basketball operations Jon Dykema said he just learned that Kepkay expects to participate in a training camp with the Canadian national team in early June -- presumably in preparation for its final attempt to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics at a tournament in Greece in July.

Kepkay is not included on the most recent training camp roster posted on the Team Canada web site, and he's never played for the national team (even at the youth level, I don't believe), so he's probably unlikely to make the squad for the qualifying tournament. But still, any time he or any of the Utes can spend training with players at that level can only help ...

Coach Jim Boylen has insisted that unlike last year, his players will be required to stay in town for workouts during most of their upcoming summer break -- with two exceptions.

Forward Kim Tillie and guard Luka Drca will play internationally during the summer, though neither will play in the 2008 Beijing Games in China.

Tillie will play with France's Under-20 national team as it prepares for the U-20 European Championship in Latvia at the start of August. Drca, meanwhile, will represent his native Serbia on a team of collegians that will play at the third annual Friendship Games that begin May 30 in Israel -- a tournament conceived by Atlanta Hawks co-owner Ed Peskowitz with the hope of uniting players from around the world. In addition to basketball, players from nearly two dozen nations tour historic sites around Tel Aviv, including Jerusalem, Nazareth, The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.

Meanwhile, the remaining Utes will stay in Salt Lake City for strength and conditioning workouts. They will be joined by all five incoming freshmen, Boylen said, who will arrive on campus by June 19 in order to take classes during the second session of summer school.

Players will finally be allowed a break after August 1, and most are expected to go home for a few weeks before the fall semester begins.

The Utes were practicing together for the first time since the season ended today, in the first of what coach Jim Boylen hopes will be four team workouts before a moratorium on such sessions begins next week.

And Boylen said he expects that will help him get over his team's poor stretch run during the regular season, a shortcoming on which he has been fixating since it happened.

"I need to get past it," he said.

Nothing about the future has changed for the Utes since the season ended, though. Boylen said his post-season one-on-one interview sessions with his players went well, and he still expects all of his underclassmen to return next season.

He still needs to hire two assistant coaches, though, something he expects to complete by the end of the month. He has compiled various lists of possible candidates, but still is debating which will be the best fit.

"The perception of people" in the industry "is that we're going to get this thing done," he said. "And we have gotten it done, but we're going to get it done better. People are excited about coming here, which is what I want."

Just a few weeks after being named to Utah's All-Century Team, the legendary Arnie Ferrin has been elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

Ferrin will be enshrined on Nov. 23 at the College Basketball Experience and Sprint Center in Kansas City.

He's the only four-time All-American in school history, and led the Utes to the 1944 NCAA Tournament championship -- he was the most outstanding player -- as well as the 1947 National Invitation Tournament championship. He later played in the NBA, winning two titles, worked as the general manager of the Utah Stars in the American Basketball Association, and served as athletic director for the Utes.

Coaches Nolan Richardson and Jim Phelan will join Ferrin in the induction class, as well as former Kansas star Danny Manning and broadcasters Billy Packer and Dick Vitale.

Just in case you missed it, the Utes had two of their incoming recruits on our Class 5-A all-state first team that appeared in the newspaper today -- and they're still pursuing the Class 5-A Most Valuable Player, junior Tyler Haws of Lone Peak High School.

Brighton's Jace Tavita and Lone Peak's Josh Sharp are the two first-teamers already planning to join the Utes, while junior C.J. Wilcox of Pleasant Grove remains a recruiting target for coach Jim Boylen.

Don't be surprised if we start hearing about new assistant coaches soon.

Coach Jim Boylen is attending the Final Four in San Antonio this weekend, where he no doubt is working on filling the two vacancies on his staff at what amounts to a national coaches convention. Almost every coach in the country winds up at the Final Four, and it's often a place where much job negotiating is performed.

Boylen left for the event the other day, after conducting one-on-one meetings with each of his players, now that they've had a little time since the end of the season to take a broad view of how things went. All in all, I would think those meetings were mostly positive, but Boylen has been so busy I haven't had the chance to ask him about them yet.

With a little luck, we'll have some updates on both fronts for you soon ...

Finally had a chance to catch up with outgoing assistant coach Chris Jones today, mostly about what kind of effect his move might have on recruiting around Utah.

After all, Jones was retained initially in large part because of his deep recruiting connections around the state, and he was in charge of coordinating recruiting efforts for coach Jim Boylen.

He won't play quite so specific an organizational role with coach Stew Morrill and the Utah State Aggies, Jones said, but he did acknowledge that his connections might help the Ags attract more Utah players.

"We're going to try," he said.

Jones said he doubts the Aggies suddenly will be in the mix for highly regarded Tyler Haws of Lone Peak High School just because of him, but "I don't think anybody else in the state is off-limits." Jones also said he doubts his departure will hurt the Utes in recruiting; Boylen has a good relationship with all of the incoming players, and has a strong recruiting background after all his years as an assistant coach himself.

"It will be fine," Jones said.

Aside from that, Jones also praised Boylen as a terrific coach and said his departure from the Utes had only to do with wanting a new challenge and change of scenery once Morrill contacted him with the opportunity. He wouldn't even validate my speculation that he saw a limited capacity for upward mobility on the Utah bench, with Boylen already poised to bring in one of "his guys" to replace departed assistant Marty Wilson.

"We didn't really have a staff like that," he said. "We were all pretty much equal."

And indeed, they always seemed to get along just fine.

In any case, hopefully Jones will get the chance to keep working his way up the coaching ladder and become a head coach someday. He's a good guy, and definitely will be missed around the Utah program.