Players started yesterday with some testing. Hoops starts today!!
Thought we could use this for any workout/offseason rumors/reports.
154 days till college hoops starts! Go Utes!
With Mahorcic and Stefanovic the Utes have as many scholarship players from Belgrade, Serbia as from the State of Utah.
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“With Mahorcic and Stefanovic the Utes have as many scholarship players from Belgrade, Serbia as from the State of Utah.”
That’s Larry K’s legacy. utah’s new coach has a lot of fence mending to do. He has his work cut out for him. But I think he is the right guy for the job.
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I hope you’re correct in that Smith can get locals interested in the U again. Hopefully it means more talent generated in the state for BBall.
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That would be fine. But honestly, I don’t care where we get players, as long as we get some good ones and they stay here.
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Let’s not forget that Utah doesn’t have a strong track record when it comes to producing basketball talent. Our homegrown best of list is pretty weak.
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Yeah, this matters much less in basketball than football. The state of Utah regularly places players into the nfl. Not true of Utah and the nba.
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Cool. Feel free to continue ignoring the local kids.
The Ute coaches are going after that guard at Farmingon High and that 5 star recruit at Wasatch Academy.
It seems like from the 70s through the 90s the state produced some really good college players but based on the number of high schools now, the talent level appears to have dropped.
Also: Is Mason Falslev still being offered a scholarship? I would imagine Smith was well aware of him, being from Cache Valley.
Mason is on his mission for at least another year. He’s a very good pick up for utah and from what I’ve heard he’s firm in his commitment.
That guard from Farmington is Colin Chandler. His family are hard core ute fans and he’s also got offers from Stanford, Creighton & BYU and a few other schools.
We’ve always gone after local kids, and we always will. Obviously, you don’t ignore your backyard with recruiting, and you don’t judge a kid based on where he’s from.
But between Utah, USU, BYU, and Weber, the best basketball players (those good enough to succeed in the NBA) have come from elsewhere:
Utah: Van Horn, Bogut, Miller, Chambers, Vranes, Poeltl, Wright, Doleac, Kuzma
USU: none
BYU: Ainge, Bradley, Roberts, Kite
WSU: Lillard
Only three guys on that list (Vranes, Bradley, and Roberts) are from Utah (two if you want to count Chambers who was born in UT but played high school ball in CO).
If you go a tier down and look at players who were very good in college but not good enough for the NBA, you have a few Utahns but still not very many. Alex Jensen, Travis Hansen, Kyle Collinsworth, Britton Johnson, Josh Grant, Frank Jackson (not born in Utah, but his high school ball was there) probably some Aggies.
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Danny Vranes was pretty good. He played in the NBA for a while.
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I’ll add him to my post. Nothing before the 80s, though! I only included Ainge because I felt so bad for BYU not having anyone of note on the list.
Vranes was the same class as Chambers.
Edit: But maybe I misunderstood your remark about nothing before the 80’s.
There are plenty of roster spots to fill. utah could do better than filling only 2 roster spots with local kids. I didn’t come on here to argue this and I’m sorry the discussion has devolved.
But has Smith offered him the same spot that Coach K offered?
Good question. Coach K retired. Larry K was fired BTW.
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You never ever never yield ground on instate players. And Utah won’t win championships because we’re loaded with NBA talent. You have a star powered difference maker, plus a couple of strong players surrounded by some role players. And then they stick around. A number of them should be Utahns.
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Sure, why not use locals as the filler? We’ve always - under every coach - persued and often landed the best in state players.
Plus, someday there will be another exception to the rule, and a Utahn will be amazing.