If you look at Utah's better teams, they always have had a good, true point guard. I know the Utes are in for a long season when I hear the coaches say that we don't really have a true point guard and that multiple players can handle the ball. It is never about handling it. It is about distributing it for good shots.Originally Posted by SeattleUte
This is so true especially in college basketball. As great as Majerus was, his legacy would look very different if you subtract one player, Andre Miller, whose greatness was quite unexpected.
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
--Albert Einstein
The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.
--Richard Dawkins
Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
--Philo
I just saw this Seattle - couldn't agree with you more. Shout out to my friend Jim Soto as well who was critical to the early success Majerus had. I was just sitting here thinking about a number of the teams I enjoyed and point guards came to mind in all of them - Jeff Jonas, Scott Martin, Pace Mannion. Tim Drisdom and Mark Jackson deserve mention as well. Interesting to note that Delon Wright is probably the only really good point guard Larry has had until now. I look at Pritchard at Oregon and I wonder if Rylan is that effective his junior and senior years? He might be be.
I still think this Utah team is heading for a tough Pac-12 season. I hope they prove me wrong.
I would say Justin Bibbins was also a very good point guard, and that was, not surprisingly, one of the best teams under Krystko.
Brandon Taylor is in the running for top player 6' and under ever at the U (in my lifetime). The list off the top of my head
Mark Jackson
Brandon Taylor
Justin Bibbins (only one year)
Jimmy Soto
Johnnie Bryant
Tommy Connor
Tyrone Tate
Jeremy Killian
Tyler Kepkay
"Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum
"And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla
+Manny Hendrix
“To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.” James Hatch, former Navy Seal and current Yale student.
At this rate, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which we're debating Larry's future after this year (OK, we can all find monsters under that bed, but we've really got nothing to base them on but the past). The Kentucky win is major currency for my demographic of Ute fan, and was the first noticeable increase in Larry's goodwill tank in some time. I'm still not convinced we're a tournament lock, and I think Oregon is going to blow our doors off. Past that, anything is possible. San Diego State will be a massive test for us -- how do we respond off a seismic win? A win there, and we can start talking about the Pac-12's status as perhaps the best league in the country (A collective bounce-back by the league is the one thing that hasn't surprised me, pleasant as that has been). I would count 8 likely/potential NCAA teams at that point. (That one of them wouldn't be UCLA strengthens that point even more.)
I grossly underestimated what Timmy Allen was capable of. I would not have been surprised if he largely peaked last year, and the best we were gonna get from him was a 15 PPG guy. He's already shown more improvement than Jordan Loveridge ever did, and he's done it without benefit of a reliable 3-point shot. Another major plus for this year's team has been 3-point shooting. With the increased distance, and losing Sed and PVD, one would think we'd both shoot fewer 3s, and be less successful when we did. Instead, the dropoff has been minimal. Prior to UK, we were taking about 1 less 3 per game from last year (26-25), and making 1 less percent (37-36).
Defensively, we've gotten much better, although with so few games, two games like Weber and Kentucky will really move the meter. Pomeroy has us 156th in adjusted defense -- we've been in the mid-200s for a good chunk of the non-con, IIRC. We are 17th in luck, which suggests something, although I don't know what it is. We have blown sizable leads in two of our wins, and better load management by Pope with Childs in the BYU game might result in a different outcome there as well.
No matter. The results are better than what we've expected, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. That said, Myrtle Beach was a disaster, UC-Davis further showed we're not immune from playing down to the competition and we still don't know what this offseason will bring. But so far, the team has largely overdelivered, and that was a must to keep Larry from coaching for his job in the 2020-21 season.
I think Allen's progress owes a lot to Rylan Jones. In college basketball, PG is the dominant position on a winning team. To Allen's credit, he has heaped credit on Jones, calling him already the best PG in the conference. That's a stretch at this point, but I can't think of a Ute PG, for all the great ones we've had, including Miller, who had so successful a freshman season as Jones is having so far. It's a tough position to master.
Jones has been the most surprising development to me. I had low expectations for a point guard who was a star locally but now had to scale a huge transition. He also is evincing the iron will that is required of great point guards.
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
--Albert Einstein
The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.
--Richard Dawkins
Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
--Philo
At the end of last season, I said Larry needed to energize the fan base in order to keep off the hot seat. I think that's still true. We need to be feeling excited about the future of Utah basketball by season's end. We're feeling good now, but we won't be in March if we finish 6-12 in the Pac-12 without being competitive against the top teams. The first few weeks of January will tell us a lot.
Anyone want to give me a scouting report on SDSU? I have no idea what we're looking at tomorrow.
I'm the same. Agree with MRD about Brandon Taylor, though. I love that guy.
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
--Albert Einstein
The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.
--Richard Dawkins
Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
--Philo
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