That’s one of those Majerus postgames I remember vividly, too.
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I have great memories of sitting in the living room with my dad, listening to Majerus’ post-game shows. I think Majerus’ knowledge of the game was as good as anyone who has ever coached. It was almost magical to listen to him break down a game.
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This season is an intolerable failure so far. That’s the unvarnished truth. No way to spin it any other way. Just compare last year’s record to this one. The fact that an entire team had to be rebuilt except one player is no excuse. That was a self-inflicted wound. If those players came to Utah in the first place the preponderance of the evidence says they could have been retained.
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Everybody knows the season is an intolerable failure. The team has given up. The offense has broken down; last night we could barely get a shot off before a shot clock violation.
Just write it off. Not much point in getting upset about it. Next year will tell if Alex can coach or not. Jury is far, far out on that.
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I am not sure I agree that the team has given up. I just think the talent isn’t there. A team that has quit would have lost to Houston by 35, not 14.
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I saw them run the offense, looking for opportunities… Houston is just better, quicker, longer, blocked multiple shots we’ve gotten off against other opponents.
No surprise Dawes is the player to emerge against bigger / quicker / longer competition. He matches up better than anyone else we have.
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Much more pleased with last night’s effort than the last couple of home games against the Sun Devils and Pokes. Needed a few more of the treys to fall (a lot of them were rushed to beat the shot clock and/or partially blocked). We simply were outmatched physically but never stopped playing hard.
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Houston postgame.
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It’s not just Houston’s better players. This is what happens when a team plays hard on both ends of the court. Houston could go out there and play essentially a pickup game like BYU does and Utah often does. The top tier of the Big 12 are talented and play hard and disciplined on both ends.
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Without a doubt, Kelvin Sampson has his team paying attention to the details. They’re talented and driven, want to get back to the Final Four and finish.
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Disagree. Run what offense? Its mostly Brown, McHenry and Abbey dribbling until the shot clock runs down. Lack of opportunities not due just to Houston’s defense it seems to me.
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We need more passing and less dribbling. Trick though is athletic long-armed opponents like to intercept those passes if you aren’t careful.
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Only Dawes & Brown would make the Houston roster & neither would start. They would be subs/role played on that team.
Is the lack of talent because of lack of money or because Alex did not come to Utah until after the NBA season & thus did not recruit until it was too late?
Based on that article about Wes Wilcox and how he’s neck-deep into getting players for next year, I think we were behind the 8 ball to begin with… no disrespect to our guys or their desire to be better.
It’s a crazy market of thousands of players, roster turnover, etc. Agents, GMs (like Wilcox), sorting through who is who, etc.
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It is a forgettable season, no doubt about it, but I am confident that Jensen is still 100% better than Smith. Somehow this season would be worse if Smith was still HC.
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The best teams have a mix of guys already in the program - eg, Arizona’s Bradley, who was here in the last PAC season in the 2OT game - and elite newcomers.
We held onto Dawes and Ibi Traore, and everyone else was picked up on the open market, late. We took a gamble on an elite athlete who flamed out as a FR, and he flamed out here, too. He was supposedly the highest paid NIL player, this year.
It’s like next season will be the first full year of development. I’m anxious to see who Wes Wilcox has lined up.
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I think a lot of that was by design in the game plan to try to avoid getting into a track meet with the Cougars. To a degree it worked. They didn’t run us out of the gym.
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It seems some have forgotten that Alex also got heavily involved late as he was finishing up his G league job. As such, I’ll give him a pass on that this year. Guys left the program because of uncertainty, not necessarily jettisoned, and it’s hard to get new ones when there’s little contact with the new head coach.
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We should all have this firmly in mind. I am confident that Alex will make us at least respectable and maybe even competitive, but it’s going to take a while.
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The thing I would like to see erased from the dialogue about Utah sports is that it’s doomed to mediocrity or failure because of NIL. Utah has shown that it can recruit well enough to compete against the best—if it can do it in football, it can do it in basketball. The football team just had possibly its best recruiting year. Like football, winning in college basketball isn’t about getting the best players or player every year. It’s about program, continuity, player development, discipline, defense. In fact, it’s hard to build a program with ones and dones. Florida won the national championship last year and its best player was a fifth year senior picked 18th in the NBA draft. U Conn has been similar. The attitude needs to be, nothing has changed. Utah still has to work harder and be smarter to excel. When Utah teams have excelled, it’s because they have been better at the fundamentals of basketball. That’s always been it. It’s because of their defense and discipline on offense. It’s why I have always doubted the wisdom of hiring an NBA assistant. Fortunately, Alex has the training required to succeed in college sports. The problem here is not that Utah can’t buy five star players. The fundamental problem is fundamentals. It’s been that way for years. Unfortunately, what Utah needs most isn’t glamourous, it’s not fun day to day, probably for the coach as much as the players. But especially for Utah, it’s essential.
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