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Thread: The 2018 Utah Classic Thread

  1. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
    Oh I'm not comparing K to Whit, one is a Utah HOF'er and the other isn't and that isn't going to change. It was more of a critique of fans who jump on the "We need change yesterday" bandwagon. In fact pointing out Whit was to say, "Look, this is a coach that (all of the reasons you just mentioned), and some fickle mushhead fans want HIM to go".
    Yeah, it would be real easy for me to go into 2012 mode and nod condescendingly that Larry ain't the guy and should be fired now, but we still owe him this year and all of next at the very minimum to turn it around. Yes, the results are a fireable offense, but Larry's contract is the parting gift Chris Hill gave us and we gotta live through it. And I just don't see the boosters ponying up right now to buy out his contract.

  2. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by Scorcho View Post

    Utah Basketball is suffering the same ailment that BYU Football fans are suffering. The fans expectation of Utah basketball is the standard that Majerus left, and BYU Fans expectation is the same with Lavell. Those periods were outliers and not true representations of the programs.

    BYU is an independent in a P-5 world. Utah is a P-5 member with huge salaries and state of the art facilities. Our expectations are not unreasonable, IMHO.

  3. #93
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    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    BYU is an independent in a P-5 world. Utah is a P-5 member with huge salaries and state of the art facilities. Our expectations are not unreasonable, IMHO.
    Right. Our only demand is we make the NCAA Tournament more often than not, and we adjust our bar for success accordingly. In a 68-team field, with our history, arena and passion for hoops, that should not be an exceptionally hard bar to clear. Maybe we don't go 12 times in 15 years under Majerus (80 percent), but we should definitely go more than 4 times in the 14 years since (29 percent).

  4. #94
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    Quote Originally Posted by SoCalPat View Post
    Right. Our only demand is we make the NCAA Tournament more often than not, and we adjust our bar for success accordingly. In a 68-team field, with our history, arena and passion for hoops, that should not be an exceptionally hard bar to clear. Maybe we don't go 12 times in 15 years under Majerus (80 percent), but we should definitely go more than 4 times in the 14 years since (29 percent).
    I agree about making the NCAA Tournament. But when I think about the old days of the WAC/MWC, Utah was the premier basketball program in the conference. Comparing that to the PAC-12 and we've been a middling program at best (trailing AZ, UCLA, Oregon). With Majerus we're in that mix, with Krysko we're clearly not.

  5. #95
    loyter on UFN pretty much sums it up for me - and yes I am on the b-ball apathy train right now - despite calling myself a b-ball junkie.

    https://www.utefans.net/message.php?...message1933359

    But wait, if I make a point to say I don't care, doesn't it mean I care?

    Yeah, actually I DO care, because I WANT to be passionate about Utah Basketball again. Some of my favorite lifetime memories revolve around the program and the JMHC. Boylen's last year was the first time I gave up on Utah Basketball - I just couldn't watch the train wreck anymore, and viewed my absence as a clear vote of what I thought of him. I didn't go to any games that year, and that was following me being able to count the home games I had missed without taking off my shoes.

    Kodiak got me back right away, and I even enjoyed his first awful year of sorts. But last year I went to maybe 4 games and I haven't even watched one yet this year. In a true sign of the times I didn't even realize we had already played BYU until I logged in. If that is the attitude I have as a true Ute b-ball fanatic the athletic department should be worried if they aren't already.

  6. #96
    Also, can someone explain to me why nothing has happened to Arizona, USC and Oregon, and why the schools have done basically nothing? Is it just a cash grab at this point knowing they should keep letting it roll until the hammer comes down, or do they think they're getting off?

  7. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    I'm not sure what they think, but I think they're getting off. What historical evidence do we have to make us believe otherwise?
    There are still two more trials, one of which involves Book Richardson, the Arizona assistant. So there wasn't a lot in the first trial about Arizona (or any other Pac-12 school, for that matter). The implication in the first trial that Oregon was guilty as hell of offering a huge amount of money to a player never came forth. This is a pretty good story that sums up what happened earlier this fall, and that there's still much, much more to happen before the NCAA really gets its wheels in motion.

    https://www.sbnation.com/college-bas...ville-duke-lsu

  8. #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
    loyter on UFN pretty much sums it up for me - and yes I am on the b-ball apathy train right now - despite calling myself a b-ball junkie.

    https://www.utefans.net/message.php?...message1933359

    But wait, if I make a point to say I don't care, doesn't it mean I care?

    Yeah, actually I DO care, because I WANT to be passionate about Utah Basketball again. Some of my favorite lifetime memories revolve around the program and the JMHC. Boylen's last year was the first time I gave up on Utah Basketball - I just couldn't watch the train wreck anymore, and viewed my absence as a clear vote of what I thought of him. I didn't go to any games that year, and that was following me being able to count the home games I had missed without taking off my shoes.

    Kodiak got me back right away, and I even enjoyed his first awful year of sorts. But last year I went to maybe 4 games and I haven't even watched one yet this year. In a true sign of the times I didn't even realize we had already played BYU until I logged in. If that is the attitude I have as a true Ute b-ball fanatic the athletic department should be worried if they aren't already.
    Two things could get Jimmy fired this season (presuming money isn't an issue)

    1. Scandal

    2. A complete cratering of fan interest. How one would define that numerically or statistically, I don't know.

  9. #99
    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    I don't know what our expectations are. Certainly higher than finishing in the bottom few spots in a bad Pac-12. My wish is to see Utah become an annual (bi-annual?) tournament team. I don't know if that's realistic. How many of those programs are there? There's not a lot of room at that table. Being P5 is not a strong advantage in basketball. Plenty of mid majors (defined as NOT P5) are the class of program I aspire to be, and a good-not-great mid major has an easier path to the tournament than a good-not-great P5.
    I do think its important to remember that in basketball one guy can make a huge difference in the success of a program. What if Lahat turns out to be a gem? Rylan Jones? Gach or Gaskin. That is what keeps me interested in the college game. The game in general just isn't what it used to be now with kids using it as a stepping stone to the NBA.

  10. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    Part of what makes it hard to measure is the baseline is so low now. We have just 1-2 truly rocking Huntsman center games per year now. We've been in a state of relative apathy for a decade, so it would be hard to notice a change to complete apathy.
    Excluding some of the blue bloods, apathy is everywhere until march comes around. The sad truth of college basketball. Now with recruiting scandals just confirming what everyone suspected. It's kind of a mess.

  11. #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    Part of what makes it hard to measure is the baseline is so low now. We have just 1-2 truly rocking Huntsman center games per year now. We've been in a state of relative apathy for a decade, so it would be hard to notice a change to complete apathy.
    I've been to four men's games under Larry, three that weren't part of his first year, which shouldn't really count for this purpose. Two were Sunday games in our S16 year that were absolute blowouts.

    The third -- and probably one of the three best games at the JHC in the Pac-12 era -- was undefeated and top 10 Oregon in our first NIT year (It was also a weeknight game). Ideally, you have 3-4 home games per year like that, one of them in the non-con. I would say we had two such games last year, but within a very short span -- ASU and Arizona. The year before that, just UCLA. But in our R32 year, we had four. Our S16 team was so good at home, we routed a ton of teams but we still had Wichita State and Arizona, which were barnburners.

    This is a problem that's not entirely Larry's fault (although his 300-plus tempo teams certainly contribute to it), but a lot of college hoops games are borderline unwatchable. Meanwhile, you can go see any Jazz game and see no fewer than a half-dozen plays in every game that you rarely see in a typical college game. Never underestimate the ability of the Jazz to bite into home attendance. Winning simply isn't good enough at Utah -- you have to be playing in meaningful games against meaningful competition, too. The rest of the league isn't helping in that regard, either. What should be a six-bid league annually is more like a three-bid league.

    I guess a complete cratering of fan interest would be a net loss in year-over-year season ticket sales and non-existent walk-up sales, coupled with borderline mutiny on the part of some of our biggest boosters. I'm inclined to believe we're nowhere close to that, but I'm also woke enough to know that such a moment can come up on you suddenly, too.
    Last edited by SoCalPat; 12-10-2018 at 02:57 PM.

  12. #102
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    Quote Originally Posted by snafu View Post
    Excluding some of the blue bloods, apathy is everywhere until march comes around. The sad truth of college basketball. Now with recruiting scandals just confirming what everyone suspected. It's kind of a mess.
    I like what the Big 10 is doing to try and drum up interest in November and December by scheduling conference games, but that's also a byproduct of a 20-game league slate.

  13. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by SoCalPat View Post
    I like what the Big 10 is doing to try and drum up interest in November and December by scheduling conference games, but that's also a byproduct of a 20-game league slate.
    I've seen the idea floated by various pundits that the college basketball season would greatly benefit from being pushed back by 4-6 weeks, as in we'd barely be starting official games within the last week or so. This would push March Madness into April or even May, which would be weird but I think that is one event that people will watch regardless of when it falls on the calendar.

    How many of the best OOC basketball matchups come in tournaments around Thanksgiving? Those were a lot bigger 15+ years ago before CFB was playing a 12 game season and conference championship games were so prevalent. Now CFB extends at least a full weekend after Thanksgiving weekend, which buries most of college basketball's best pre-season content. Most college basketball teams open with a couple of tuneups, play some sort of tournament around Thanksgiving and then spend December with a couple of marquee games in between finals week and Christmas week cupcakes. Then you're into January and conference play before people really have a reason to tune in to CBB.

    I think pushing it back would be a good move to separate CBB from the shadow of CFB, but I'm sure it's more complicated than I can see.

  14. #104
    Larry's Pac 12 results:

    2011-12: 11th
    2012-13: 10th
    2013-14: 8th NIT
    2014-15: 2nd NCAA
    2015-16: 2nd NCAA
    2016-17: 4th NIT
    2017-18: 3rd NIT

    20 win team in each of last 5 years after putting out Boylen's dumpster fire. I really believe he has what he needs in Rylan Jones' basketball IQ next year to begin a steeper trajectory for this program. Unless something unusual happens, I'd like to see what this year plus next year brings. I completely understand the anxiousness to head in a different direction, but I can't bring myself to throw in the towel on him yet, in spite of genuine concerns and warning signs.
    “Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman

    "You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb

    "Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.

  15. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by mUUser View Post
    Larry's Pac 12 results:

    2011-12: 11th
    2012-13: 10th
    2013-14: 8th NIT
    2014-15: 2nd NCAA
    2015-16: 2nd NCAA
    2016-17: 4th NIT
    2017-18: 3rd NIT

    20 win team in each of last 5 years after putting out Boylen's dumpster fire. I really believe he has what he needs in Rylan Jones' basketball IQ next year to begin a steeper trajectory for this program. Unless something unusual happens, I'd like to see what this year plus next year brings. I completely understand the anxiousness to head in a different direction, but I can't bring myself to throw in the towel on him yet, in spite of genuine concerns and warning signs.
    Those last two seasons... how in the world is the PAC-12 a 2-3 bid league (just like Socalpat said). Crazy.


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  16. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
    Those last two seasons... how in the world is the PAC-12 a 2-3 bid league (just like Socalpat said). Crazy.


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    It could be a 1 bid league this year.

  17. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
    Those last two seasons... how in the world is the PAC-12 a 2-3 bid league (just like Socalpat said). Crazy.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    I may be misremembering but I feel like weak ooc schedules both years kept us out.

  18. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    That is not true of last year's team (that is, a tougher OOC alone would not have had us in the tournament). I can't remember about the year before.
    Yeah, probably a combination. If I remember right, we were right there had we beaten USC and were among the last teams out prior to that loss/early out in Vegas. Still, if we replace the 300+ teams with 150-200, I think our RPI might have gotten us in. Oh well.

  19. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by concerned View Post
    It could be a 1 bid league this year.
    I predict 3, but none higher than a 5 seed.

  20. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by UtahsMrSports View Post
    Yeah, probably a combination. If I remember right, we were right there had we beaten USC and were among the last teams out prior to that loss/early out in Vegas. Still, if we replace the 300+ teams with 150-200, I think our RPI might have gotten us in. Oh well.
    Utah was a 2-seed in the NIT last year, which means that (at least in the NIT's estimation) they were among the 5-8 best teams not in the NCAA. (I realize the NCAA committee may not have held the same opinion but it still gives you a reference point). The prior year I think Utah was a 3 or 4 seed in the NIT when the lost to Boise State.

    The irony (okay, maybe not irony but just something that sucks) is that with some better OOC scheduling a few breaks Utah could have made the NCAA both of those seasons. In hindsight, I do think the team was good enough both years to make it with some better scheduling (i.e. no sub-250 RPI games and a couple more marquee games) and some luck (better chemistry two years ago, no Donnie Tillman injury last year, etc).

    Larry could easily be riding a 4-year NCAA streak and I think people would be a lot more patient with this year's rebuild. But those are missed opportunities so now he has a lot more work to do to sell everyone on the future of this program.

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