https://x.com/jfurksl/status/2034993785797484824?s=46&t=_bZk7iudoxaI6ONfb91dZg
More detail
Kyle actually asked for his existing contract to get a bump to almost $10M his final year, with guaranteed $20Mil NIL and another $2M for assistants.
Utah countered. It’s obvious in the counter that the university felt a need to keep Scalley and protect long term recruiting
I’m going to stand by what I have said earlier: I support Scalley 100% and think he is going to do an amazing job.
This really doesn’t help Whit’s image. I’m unsure if it hurts, but it certainly doesn’t help.
I’m also pretty certain that Scalley was getting tired of the waiting, and Kyle going back and forth the last 2 or 3 years.
It was time for a change, honestly. And I really think Scalley is going to hit it off well with recruits, donors, admin, and fans.
Scalley has been an elite recruiter going back a long time. He’s a natural, his enthusiasm is infectious.
I asked him years ago how he got Eric Rowe, who played CB and Safety for us, and only recently retired from the league. Really interesting. He was watching a game Rowe was playing in, back in HS in Texas, and some other coaches were there, some from Boise and other schools he didn’t mention.
He heard hesitation from the other schools because they played quarters on defense - all zone, no man. Scalley jumped on it, offered Rowe, got him. He adapted to man coverage easily.
Our Texas pipeline - without having games in Texas - was all due to Scalley. I think later they added another recruiter to northern Texas / Dallas area, but Scalley was pulling trophy players out of Houston for years.
I’m not interested anymore in what happened and why it happened. KW is gone. Scalley is HC and I am happy with what I’ve seen and heard so far.
I agree with this. At least, I REALLY want it to be true.
But ya know what kinda hangs out in the back of my mind…
I felt the same way when Hill and Majerus parted ways. It wasn’t cordial. It wasn’t “storybook ending.” But I remember thinking that, in spite of all of his success, Majerus’s ego had grown too big and he thought he was bigger than the U. I was ready to move on from him and for the U to show that Runnin Ute basketball would succeed w/o Majerus. I was convinced we would. I was prepared to not have Big Rick level of success…
But I was not prepared for a historic plummet that we still haven’t stopped.
I was wrong. It WAS the coach. It was 99% the coach — and an AD that hadn’t laid the foundation for a program to succeed after a massively successful coach. I pray we’re not about to start the football version of this.
Scalley > Giacoletti…and yet, I can’t help but see the parallels.
Understandable.
I think Scalley is more proven because he was effectively co-head coach of a complex half of the team… and he’s known that he was going to become HC, so he’s had time to really noodle on things and observe that position, in a way Whitt didn’t get, as much. (Maybe Meyer told him he wasn’t going to be here, we’ll never know.)
Giacoletti was more like hiring Weber’s coach… no offense to Mrs Ma’ake’s alma mater. 
Like Dick Motta or Neil McCarthy?
Touche, brother. lol. 
We all wanted Mark Few or Randy Bennett, who apparently saw that following in Big Rick’s footsteps might be high risk, or were wisely happy where they were and didn’t jump for the “bigger opportunity”. Lon Kruger, other names we may never know. Everyone chilled at the scenario.
For whatever reason, Chris Hill was left with his 10th choice and was really rolling the dice and took Giac on the assumption he must be good because he was Few’s top assistant. By the time Boylen showed up (pun!) the fans were fading away. It looked like LK was the right hire… until health problems and other schools (Sean Miller) were getting a jump on what would become NIL.
We were “that close” with LK, IMO.
More recently, Craig Smith looked like he could be a Motta / McCarthy-like find because he did well at USU, on the backs of 2 players now in the NBA.
We have a smaller, briefer version of what UCLA has been through after Wooden. Gene Bartow ran away to Alabama, Larry Brown had some brief success, Ben Howland, Jim Harrick, Steve Lavin, Steve Alford…names who simply couldn’t live up to the legend. Now they have the pissed off Leprechan, but it’s never going to be what it was.
In our case, Majerus wasn’t Wooden, but had a similar very large shadow. With each passing year he blends into the history books, all the way back to 1944. I think we’re ready for a build up… but I thought we might be OK with Smith, too.
Somewhat loosely connecting Whitt and Alex Jensen… #9 Saint Louis is leading #1 Michigan in the first half.
It’s been a few years, but would AJ have been a reasonable replacement for Rick at Saint Louis? He did hire him.
Who here is skilled with seances?
/endrando
Bartow had a higher winning percentage than Wooden (albeit just two years there). But his UCLA team lost to Idaho St. in the NCAA Tournament, and he received death threats.
I’d take Wooden’s record.
Of course. Winning 10 titles in 12 years. It’s has never come close to happening since and likely never will. Incredible.
I think it was more the situation as well as the coach. Saint Fatman never had the same success after he left Utah. I think he was a good coach who happened to be in a league at a time where he could make things happen. I am not sure he would have had the same success in the PAC 12 or now in the BIG 12.
Scalley is way ahead of any of the BBall replacements. And the coaching staff he has assembled are much better. Several are probably better than those who left. Scalley is certainly more motivating. I always really liked Whitt but I would run through a wall for Scalley. He gets you going just from talking to him. I am excited for the future.
I have no idea how Majerus would have done in the PAC-12 or Big 12. I don’t think today’s NIL and transfer portal era would have been good for him and coaches like Bob Knight. Imagine what Jerry Tarkanian would do today when the things he did back in the day are now actually legal!
Scalley is definitely set up much, much better than post-Majerus coaches in basketball were. And agree about Scalley. The more I listen to him and think about the program under his direction, I think this will be a good change.
Many of you have probably seen this story. I haven’t been following this drama closely, and this news makes me sad. It didn’t have to end this way.
Why does the NYP care about Utah sports?
Beats me. I saw this article in Yahoo Sports and thought that it originated there.
Whit makes 13 million over 2 years for transitioning (leaving) a job?