K had to be fired. There have been no bad fires, since Majerus. Only bad hires.
1 Like
These days I spend more time following BYU–hoping it loses. Not because it’s BYU per se. It’s emblematic of what’s wrong with college sports. This is why the entire free world should despise BYU and treat it like a pariah. A third-world institution run by mullahs trying to buy legitimacy through a college sports recruiting arm’s race. It’s the Iran of universities.
5 Likes
The succession of bad hires since Majerus really is unbelievable. If Alex doesnt succeed, I don’t know where the U would go from there. Especially with downsizing and upgradng the Huntsman. I certainly would not have any hope for the future. (Im hanging on by a thread now.)
3 Likes
For sure. But I have to say that Larry K wasn’t a bad hire. He took over Boylen’s mess and had Utah in the Sweet 16 by year four. It’s just so disappointing that he couldn’t keep it up and that things fell off so hard, so fast.
9 Likes
Agreed. At the time, it was a great hire but the wheels eventually came off unfortunately.
It seemed that after his cancer episode he lost a lot of the passion for what he was doing. All things being equal right now (acknowleging Alex hasn’t had a fair shot yet), of all the post Majerus hires, I’d take Krystko.
But I still have faith that Alex can pull it together. In fact, his NBA experience lends well to the NIL world of today.
8 Likes
Honestly, after 2014-15 and 2015-16 and the tournament wins, top-25 finishes, and second-place conference finishes to really good teams, I thought Utah basketball was back. Sad that it was so short-lived.
5 Likes
Larry K was a good coach. He found and produced NBA talent. He’s the only decent coach Utah has had since Majerus, Smith was an enormous step down. I hope AJ has what it takes.
3 Likes
Larry had some talent, but well before the NIL era, lots of players were leaving for other schools.
I will never forget the NIT game where the team and crowd just weren’t into it and Larry exploded after a 50/50 call and got himself ejected. Lit a fire under the players and spectators, we came back and won, and made it to the final game.
4 Likes
Boy, a huge ditto to this.
In sports they talk about “a tale of two halves.” And that was LK’s tenure to a T. Things looked so promising in his first 4-5 years, and almost like someone flipped a switch, LK and his program just…disappeared in his last 5-6 years. Whatever touch he had early was just gone. Players would bail, recruiting was whiffing. And yet, I still think “back-half” LK was better than Smith.
I’ve heard rumors about why that was, but nothing definitive. I agree that we would have been better off keeping LK than running with the whole CS fiasco. What a mess. Craig seemed like a nice guy, but our program was going nowhere with him. We had whatever the opposite of mojo was. Losing players, recruits, and coaches to BYU like we had leperacy.
I hoped for better with year one of AJ, but the important thing with bringing him in is that hopefully, hopefully, HOPEFULLY, there is way more investment from the administration, boosters and fans to give AJ the support that CS never had. If having AJ wakes those groups up and gets them to invest, that was worth it alone even if AJ ends up being a less-than-stellar coach — and I have way more faith in him than that.
I don’t think BYU’s KY is that great of a coach, but they have the admin, boosters, and fans all pulling in the same direction and it’s giving them A LOT of momentum. Utah HAS TO get that kind of support or we’re screwed. Head coach is kind of the least of our problems.
5 Likes
100% this. I thought we WERE back. That’s why it was so strange that we fell off as fast as we rose with LK. Smith was just the wrong hire. He just was. Whatever problems we had going with LK were compounded with Smith, and I’m not sure why. I don’t think Smith was a bad coach. I just think Harlan went too “executive decision” with that hire, and without the blessing of the money boosters, Smith was effed right out of the gate. Sucks for him. Much of that is not his fault. But our program is what has suffered the most.
2 Likes
as everyone has pointed out, cancer, losing Markennan (among others maybe), and also getting slapped by the legislature for not scheduling BYU seemed to take a lot out of LK.
3 Likes
Good points. Even Majerus lost steam at the end of his tenure. His poor health, losing in the finals, and then the Lance Allred crap seemed to be his undoing. 1998-99 was the end of the really, really good Utah teams. Majerus wasn’t the same in 1999-2000 through 2003-04.
4 Likes
That loss in the championship game to them crushed Rick’s heart and soul and he wasn’t the same after that. In his book he wrote about what a massive difference between winning and finishing runner-up was.
2 Likes
100% true, and often overlooked.
2 Likes
What is most overlooked is the contingencies that a coach can’t fully control and make or break him. Luck or not. What if Majerus had never recruited Andre Miller, or, Miller had stayed in football? What if Miller had been injured in 1998? Especially at Utah, where talent needs to be found and coached up, the stars have to line up just right. All the time you see coaches do really well one place and just never roll the same sixes at a new program. Craig Smih was one of those, Sprinkle at Washington, Ed Cooley at Georgetown, Pope at Kentucky, Chris Beard at Ole Miss, Don Monson at Minnesota. The list goes on and on. Maybe K just ran out of luck. Good college basketball coaches are rare, like the best of any profession, and there’s also a lot of luck bad or good.
Last night Wahlin started for Clemson, beating North Carolina. Not really an upset, as they have identical records, 24-6 and 12-6. Wahlin had 3 points and 2 rebounds, yet Clemson’s coach saw fit to play him 24 minutes. He is a Drew Hansen kind of player—something Utah lacked this season.
Majerus was a master at getting the most out of his players (at least those who chose to stick around). The 1990–91 Utes are a good example. That team went 30-4 and made it to the Sweet 16 before losing to one of the best college teams of all time in UNLV. That Ute squad did have a very good player in Josh Grant and then a ton of players who knew their roles. Had Miller been injured in '98, Utah doesn’t make the finals, but I’m sure Majerus still finds a way to get 23 or so wins out of that squad.
3 Likes
Rick not only got the most of his players, but was exceptional at neutralizing the best weapons of the opponent. Lots of players had their career-lows when facing the Utes back then.
5 Likes
Yes, I forgot to mention that. He was a master at taking out the best players on the other team. Think of the 1998 Elite 8 against Arizona where he rendered Bibby, Simon, and Dickerson useless. His Ute teams used to frustrate the crap out of New Mexico’s Kenny Thomas, who as a really good college player. Another one who comes to mind was Wyoming’s Reggie Slater. The guy was built like Karl Malone and was a scoring and rebounding machine. But Rick’s Utes would hold him to 6 points and 6 rebounds instead of his customary 18 and 12. There were exceptions, like Wally S.'s game in the 1999 Second Round, but yeah, Majerus was a genius defensive schemer.
4 Likes