And Holt also out made the depth issue even more apparent.
Smith tried everyone—including a brief weird appearance by Mike Saunders Jr.
Exact 0-6 & most not even close
Tarlac 3 fouls in 4 minutes, including that ridiculous foul with .4 to go in the first half—don’t even go near the shooter who was not in his range.
Keita only 2 minutes—not sure why.
That was it, so walk-on Ballstaedt played 15 minutes.
They took 34 3’s (out of 62 shots)—that won’t work w/o Madsen.
really hope they can beat Cal as the schedule gets tough from here.
Brenchley huge in turning the game around with all the points in an 8-0 run. Always been one of my favorite bench players and had one of his finest moments tonight.
This is one of the silliest posts I’ve seen on here in a while but I get people are impatient and tend to overreact to single pieces of data.
That being said. Madsen is literally the best 3 pt. shooter in the conference! You can’t tell me that is not going to impact things significantly until everyone adjust to a new role/strategy. BC is a top 3 big man, Marco is the best defensive guard in the conference, Worster is a top 3 point guard in the conference and Lazar is arguably the best 6th man in the conference. That is a pretty solid foundation. It looks even better when you consider this is year two.
I will agree our depth leaves a lot to be desired but our top 6 can play with anyone in the country. The problem is when the reserves are in there is very limited production happing from them. Part of this is the program was gutted, which means a bunch of new guys have to come in and learn a system which has proven challenging secondly we have missed on some of the bigger recruits that would have “potentially” added more production. (this is a topic for another post, which I agree we need to be doing something drastically different on this end)
The core that is here is more than enough to be a top team in the conference. I feel if we had another productive big to come off the bench and another wing shooter off the bench we are sitting really pretty. Reinforcement are needed. The sky is no falling, we are trending up!
Exactly. It’s clear to me that Craig Smith can coach. I believe in the guy. We’re not seeing any of the tell-tale signs with him that we saw with every other coach since Majerus. In fact, we’re seeing the opposite: No crunch time meltdowns; no kids labeled “turds” leaving the program; no embarrassing on-court antics; clearly visible offensive and defensive schemes; unselfishness, no quit in the players–in fact, 100% effort every minute. Just good, solid coaching. I love watching it.
On another side note—I watched Ut State play—Steven Ashworth ? From Alpine Utah ranks 3rd in country in % from 3.?
Never heard of him in recruiting circles.
And Rylan Jones was averaging only 4.2 pts a game until he suffered a concussion in early January & is still out.
I guess the Rollie for Rylan trade has worked out for the Utes.
6 regular season games left. Hopeful we finish strong. Based on what I’m seeing, we can go anywhere from 0-6 to 3-3. Candidly, I would be very happy if we can go 3-3.
Rough games ahead with Gabe not expected to be here a while. But that’s part of the game sometimes. Have to play through losing teammates to injuries and other issues sometimes.
Yup. 4-2 would be superb, but I don’t see much of a chance. I would not be a tiny bit surprised if we go 0-6 or 1-5. 2-4 and 3-3 are certainly realistic. Hey, would love to be wrong here.
My guess is Utah beats CU at home, gets crushed at Arizona, plays ASU tough but loses by 7 or 8, gives UCLA a decent game but loses by 10, beats USC in overtime, and plays flat in a lopsided loss at Colorado. So a 2-4 finish. Tough to see more than 2 or 3 wins here.
