The Utah Basketball Rebuild Project Thread: 2013 and after

[Two Utes]

I agree he had an impressive record with this church ball team. My objection is that he has a church ball team. He doesn’t seem to have a continuous program right now. He needs to rely less on transfers and more on recruits who come as freshmen. The top two ranked teams in the country don’t have ones and dones, so it’s possible to compete with the Arizonas by recruiting guys who stay four years. Oregon is an example. We’ve had rental teams. Lots of fifth year players, JUCOS and other transfers. Also, there are some tendencies that are a problem, like his almost complete inability to beat Altman or Arizona, the NCAA tournament drought, and the way his teams just treat the NIT like a vacation.

We’re Utah, and there are a lot of explanations available for these problems. What we need is a coach who figures out how to work around the challenges or even turn them to his advantage. There are other coaches who can get us to the glass ceiling and leave us blaming the glass ceiling for the lack of exceptional seasons. We need one who breaks through, like has happened at Virginia and Villanova.

You aren't paying attention to college basketball. Kids aren't staying. And, if the NCAA actually changes the rule about having to sit out a year, more kids will transfer. Oregon has a bunch of transfer, graduate transfer, JC guys. That's basketball today. You have to figure out how to make it work.

Ironically, we have no problem with Whit's success in the PAC 12, but many here (like you) criticize K for similar success.

My biggest problem with this program right now is their scheduling. It's influenced too much by the Stew Morrill/Rick Majerus approach. Those days are gone. Upgrade the godammned preseason schedule now.

[LA Ute]

My biggest problem with this program right now is their scheduling. It's influenced too much by the Stew Morrill/Rick Majerus approach. Those days are gone. Upgrade the ********* preseason schedule now.

Dead on. From what LK is saying lately it sounds like he gets that. I think the focus on "Quadrant 1" is stupid, but it's what the selection committee is doing now. Look at ASU. You win a couple of big games in the per-season and go 8-10 in your conference, and you're still in the Dance. What happened to the "body of work" concept?

[DrumNFeather]

Dead on. From what LK is saying lately it sounds like he gets that. I think the focus on "Quadrant 1" is stupid, but it's what the selection committee is doing now. Look at ASU. You win a couple of big games in the per-season and go 8-10 in your conference, and you're still in the Dance. What happened to the "body of work" concept?

Ultimately, I think Q1 is something you hope for, but don't necessarily schedule for. Take Arizona...they went 3-3 against Q1 teams during this year, but only had 2 Q1 opportunities in the non-conference (Texas A&M, Purdue) and they went 1-1. However, they had 4 Q2 opportunities in the non-conference (Went 3-1), and played 2 of those games on the road @UNLV and @New Mexico. They played Alabama at home, and NC State at a neutral site. They also played UCONN at home, which ended up being a Q3 game, but in most years probably isn't. So, in the non-conference, you have 7 of your 12 games as Q1/Q2 opportunities, and then 3 Q4, and 3 that ended up being Q3 (one was a loss to SMU). By the time you get to the league schedule, you've already played some challenging games and you are ready for what the league throws at you...and while it may have been down, it still is not easy to go on the road and win.

Ultimately, Arizona finished with 17 Q1/Q2 opportunities, and won 11 of those games. They also picked up two more Q1 wins in Vegas over UCLA and USC.

By comparison, Utah played 2 Q1 games in the non-conference (Butler, BYU), and went 0-2, and played 1 Q2 game in the non-conference and won...so that's 3 opportunities, verses Arizona's 7. Granted, nobody expected UNLV/Ole Miss to be as bad as they were, but again, and I've been beating this drum for a while now...if you know you can play another game and you get 2 in Vegas, then you move heaven and earth to do so. Period. If EWU is a road game, that's a Q2 win.

Looking at next year, as I did in the other thread...we have 4 neutral site games scheduled, with the potential to get at least one Q1/Q2 win if things fall right for us. BYU will almost certainly be a Q2 game, unless they fall apart, and Missouri will also be a Q1/Q2 game. So right there you've got the potential for 4 games, if things fall your way. I would like to see at least one more true road game, if not two, and see if you can't get some decent home and homes to round out your schedule. The new format will make it so that it behooves both P5 and Mid Major teams to travel more. If you are Utah, you just have to identify what those low-risk/high reward games are, and take care of business in your Q3/Q4 games, unlike Stanford did. If Stanford just wins their Q3/Q4 games with everyone else they have on the schedule, I think they are safely in the tournament.

[Scorcho]

Ultimately, I think Q1 is something you hope for, but don't necessarily schedule for. Take Arizona...they went 3-3 against Q1 teams during this year, but only had 2 Q1 opportunities in the non-conference (Texas A&M, Purdue) and they went 1-1. However, they had 4 Q2 opportunities in the non-conference (Went 3-1), and played 2 of those games on the road @UNLV and @New Mexico. They played Alabama at home, and NC State at a neutral site. They also played UCONN at home, which ended up being a Q3 game, but in most years probably isn't. So, in the non-conference, you have 7 of your 12 games as Q1/Q2 opportunities, and then 3 Q4, and 3 that ended up being Q3 (one was a loss to SMU). By the time you get to the league schedule, you've already played some challenging games and you are ready for what the league throws at you...and while it may have been down, it still is not easy to go on the road and win.

Ultimately, Arizona finished with 17 Q1/Q2 opportunities, and won 11 of those games. They also picked up two more Q1 wins in Vegas over UCLA and USC.

By comparison, Utah played 2 Q1 games in the non-conference (Butler, BYU), and went 0-2, and played 1 Q2 game in the non-conference and won...so that's 3 opportunities, verses Arizona's 7. Granted, nobody expected UNLV/Ole Miss to be as bad as they were, but again, and I've been beating this drum for a while now...if you know you can play another game and you get 2 in Vegas, then you move heaven and earth to do so. Period. If EWU is a road game, that's a Q2 win.

Looking at next year, as I did in the other thread...we have 4 neutral site games scheduled, with the potential to get at least one Q1/Q2 win if things fall right for us. BYU will almost certainly be a Q2 game, unless they fall apart, and Missouri will also be a Q1/Q2 game. So right there you've got the potential for 4 games, if things fall your way. I would like to see at least one more true road game, if not two, and see if you can't get some decent home and homes to round out your schedule. The new format will make it so that it behooves both P5 and Mid Major teams to travel more. If you are Utah, you just have to identify what those low-risk/high reward games are, and take care of business in your Q3/Q4 games, unlike Stanford did. If Stanford just wins their Q3/Q4 games with everyone else they have on the schedule, I think they are safely in the tournament.

Krystko mentioned in an interview yesterday that they assumed Ole Miss was going to be a Q1 win based on Ole Miss's pre-season hype but that didn't work out

[DrumNFeather]

Krystko mentioned in an interview yesterday that they assumed Ole Miss was going to be a Q1 win based on Ole Miss's pre-season hype but that didn't work out

Right, and there's only so much you can do there. Frankly, UNLV looked like world beaters when they took us apart, and took Arizona to overtime. So some of it is just hoping that the teams you play deliver the right results (as Larry also said yesterday). BYU didn't become a Q1 loss until they beat St. Mary's in the WCC tournament. So, even when people were evaluating our resume they were knocking that as a bad loss.