At this point, I do not believe Utah has even the potential of winning 1 conference game.
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Flashes of improvement on offense, but way too many needless turnovers and defensive breakdowns. We can play decent defense, but give up an offensive rebound and the defense falls apart.
This team’s still learning… hopefully.
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I think this team plays a terrible defense. Slow feet. Don’t understand angles. Don’t understand help/back-side defense.
Abbey is quick, but can’t pass. Utah is also a turnover machine because it can’t pass and just dribble, dribble, and dribble blindly.
The era and style of ball are different, I’m not saying this is what’s happening, but Majerus’ teams often looked pretty unimpressive in November & December, but then things started looking better in January & February.
Definitely a lot to learn from. Getting it analyzed, communicated and then into practice and into muscle memory doesn’t happen overnight, but… yeah, unimpressive.
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This may be as low as ive ever felt as a utes basketball fan. I mean, we will win another game, but the chance that we go the rest of the season without a win is…not 0.
I better sign off before I say something ill regret.
gotta give Cal Poly some credit, they were hot from deep (14/25)
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Hopeful you are right. I always try to see the potential, but…that’s enough from me. haha
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This is a low point. What follows will be a test - of AJ, of the team, of the whole staff.
5 days until the next game. Things need to start clicking. It’s still only November, so I’ll be patient.
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The Utes are not good, but Cal Poly did shoot 60% from 3 & most teams win when they shoot that %.
Jensen came in to an empty players situation. Alvin Jackson III was Craig Smith’s best recruit & he doesn’t even get off the bench. Hard to recruit &/or buy an entire team—especially when the incoming know you will suck.
They keep maybe 5-6 of this team, have 5 recruits & buy 3 more players & they might get to be an average team—which would be a big step up.
Hard to picture how ugly it will get when AZ, BYU, Iowa St, Kansas all come to town.
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I didn’t watch the game tonight, but from the comments it sounds like they layed an egg while the other team had a hot hand.
Many negative assessments from the fan base. The team basically has 10 guys that have not played along side each other for very long. That being said, I’m going to try and put a positive spin on things by using an analogy.
When I’m paired with a crew member I have never flown with, I’m not familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, nor with their personality, so there is a feeling out period. The more you fly with this person, the unknown becomes the known and we are able to adapt and gel. My point is lets be patient and try not to be so negative! Hopefully none of the players read this board. Just my opinion
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Cravens mentioned at the end of the game the Utes problems are not so much physical as mental, at this point.
A breakdown would occur, Cal Poly would pounce on it and score and the Ute player involved would hang his head, like “I blew that”. TB seems to have accepted his role as the leader, and when these breakdowns occurred, his body language was pretty heavy.
I think we may have gotten a false sense of confidence from the previous games, pulling out OT wins, etc. Losing to a low D1 school like Cal Poly in the manner we did, any false sense of confidence should be gone, this morning.
Time to go back to the whiteboard, really internalize what the coaches are saying, come back in 4 days fully prepared and committed to playing better, no shortcuts, have to get the little things right.
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So many times Utah would hit a basket and 5 seconds later Poly would answer with a trey. One time in particular was about a 20-30 second sequence of Brown for a trey, Poly a trey, Brown took it to the hoop for a nice basket, Poly Trey to answer. Those were daggers.
Team has got to improve on getting back on defense
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If you look at the stats the Utes had a pretty decent game, Cal Poly just could not miss. I was frustrated that the Utes failed to close the gap on these guys shooting lights out at the start of the game, but they did better the second half and they still shot lights out.
We were observing that Alex is taking an entire team and teaching players who probably have never played real defense before how to play defense. It seems obvious that right now he is working on man assignments more than help defense, or at least that is what I am hoping. But it would be a challenge to get everyone up to speed, versus a few new players coming into your system and the rest of the team who knows.
It’s going to be a rough year, with a shot at some surprises if people can keep their chins up and keep grinding.
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I do believe in Jensen. I really do. But he is only going to be able to do so much with non-P4 talent. The athletic department is going to need to find some big bucks fast. I don’t expect Utah to get guys like Dybanasta, but it sure would be nice to get a few Delon Wrights, Kyle Kuzmas, and Jacob Poetls again.
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Maybe some perspective:
“It’s been happening too many times now, and I think kind of getting old for everybody,” Lauri Markkanen said. “We’re definitely watching film and trying to figure it out.
We’re not in the NBA, but I don’t expect this team to reach whatever their potential is until sometime in February.
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I think that’s exactly the plan, right? Unless it was all blown smoke (and I don’t think it was; Jensen wouldn’t have been crazy enough to step into that situation, right?) I heard our NIL was going to go from $2mil to AT LEAST $7mil.
That’s not Blue Blood money, but that will grease some of the right palms, right? And certainly more than we were getting in Craig’s era.
This year is going to hurt. It just is.
I hate to put this kind of pressure on things, but I think Jensen’s early success will depend on what happens next April/May…
NIL/Portal can lead to instant success these days. But IF that doesn’t happen, I’m still confident Alex will have a talented, disciplined team in 2-3 more seasons (aka, the “hard way”). Question is, will there be any fans who can wait that long? I hope so.
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Any chance Utah wins tonight? I know nothing about the opponent.
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game is tomorrow night
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I think it’s tonight at 10:00
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Kind of shows how far Utah basketball has fallen when there is dispute over when the next game is.
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