I switched to Section J this year to save money. Next year, i’ll likely just skip it altogether.
Reasons:
Larry
The whole FBI thing with AZ and USC getting off scott free has tainted the entire league/sport.
Larry’s teams don’t play good basketball. Their fundamentals suck. They don’t box out, set decent screens, etc… It’s hard to watch. Next year, with more talent, there will be more wins, but they’ll still get outcoached and beat by teams with good coaches. Rick Majerus’ teams overachieved, Larry’s underachieve. There’s a good reason Larry ALWAYS loses to Altman.
The HC atmosphere continues to degrade, as discussed here before. They are trying to create an NBA game experience but nobody told them than the NBA game experience sucks.
Hard to argue with any of those 5 points. I don’t like the “experience”. Let the band play. Weekday game times are silly at best. Either too early for folks to get there on time, or too late for kids. The only thing I won’t question from this year’s team is effort. They always look like they’re playing hard. Maybe not well, but hard.
I can understand anyone feeling that way. I’m not there yet. My boys went with me to the game last night, and I was reminiscing about how we used to battle for student tickets back in the days when Newbomb and I were students. We had a great atmosphere for almost every game, be it against UTEP, Wyoming, USU, Weber State, it didn’t matter. Now, it’s just feels phony and contrived when things are going OK at best.
This now 16 year run of mostly mediocre has been discouraging.
“They are trying to create an NBA game experience but nobody told them than the NBA game experience sucks.”
Based on posts at this site and the internet in general, seemingly the majority of people want to turn D-I college basketball into unabashed professional basketball. I’m definitely in the minority, absolutely against it. You want a professional/NBA hoops experience, you’re getting it, per the NCAA “on or before January 2021”. Mark my words, you think football and basketball attendance is tenuous now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. How utterly short sighted, done killed the goose that laid golden eggs.
Regarding #3: It seems like past Larry K teams were better at fundamentals. I always figured Tommy C would continue that tradition.
I don’t know what’s wrong with this team. Part of me wants to see what they look like in two years when this group are juniors and next year’s freshman are sophomores.
Most of me thinks Dr Hill should have taken Altman up on the 10 year contract he was demanding.
The biggest issue is UA and USC getting away with the cheating. Doesn’t the FBI have a recorded phone call of Sean Miller talking about payments to a recruit? How is he getting away with it?
Hilarious that you think these young kids will be here as Juniors and Seniors. I think Larry does a terrible job running the program; you cannot continue to have exodus after exodus of players and be able to compete.
Dr. Hill did a lot of things right, but that last contract he gave Larry will leave a (albeit small) black eye on his legacy.
I may, but I don’t think I will ever stop watching and hoping. I watched every game I could throughout this whole 16 run of mediocrity. I was so hopeful when Jacob and Delon were going through, and notice I don’t even mention Kuz mainly because he was not really thought to be a NBA quality star until he all of a sudden was.
But I am disappointed. I’m trying to keep in perspective since there are teams like Oregon State and Washington State that just take it as a given that they will only have good years every 8-10 years when the stars align. But we shouldn’t be them, we have much more going for us. But it seems like we are them now, and I’ll just never be satisfied with that. That said, I will always watch. I am a Ute Fan now and forever, and will always love basketball and remember fondly the awesome years of the past. I always will be hopeful that we can figure it out such that we can have more than just a fleeting taste here and there.
I agree with the Larry doubts but I do worry if Maj was just a special guy that produced something that cant be reproduced. I do worry about the corrupt money that Utah won’t and shouldn’t promise, as well as the possible fame that other programs can offer. But I look around the league at the players that other schools in the PAC have, the ASU, Colorado, Washington, UCLA; why don’t we have players like theirs. Are these freshman/sophomores going to be that in a few years? Will they stay so we can see?
I said a few weeks ago that I wouldn’t get down on this team, but that was on the presumption they would continue getting better, not worse. Now I don’t know what to think…
“Second youngest team in division I hoops”, which is why I give K3 the benefit of the doubt this season. As for next season, other than physical or mental ailments or family emergencies, if all the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors on the current roster don’t return, he has a significant coaching deficiency…
After last night I have decided that I cannot watch another minute of Utah basketball this year. It is too frustrating for me and I suspect that the Utes will not win another game this season and will likely get blown out in 4 of the remaining 5 games they will play.
I’ve nearly completely lost interest in college basketball (and the NBA as well). I think a certain component of that is that Utah Basketball hasn’t been relevant in years. The Maji days were glorious, at least for a while. Now every year we are “rebuilding” and at the end of the season several players transfer and we “rebuild” again. The only common denominator is Coach K. If he is recruiting bad apples and then has to get rid of them, then get better at recruiting. Or maybe coach K is the problem. Something needs to change…