A lot of us thought Larry had us turning the corner after those first few seasons. Romping to the sweet 16, beating Duke in the pre-season, and beating BYU a few times (even knocked them off in Provo). Then we just seemed to slowly fade with a series of mediocre seasons.
Agreed. Interesting comments from Jeff Jones on Mark Harlan. I think what he said needs to be considered going forward. Also, JJ had some interesting thoughts on a player or two who bailed on Utah. They did not do well or as well as maybe they thought. The point about recruiting your own players is solid, not sure if K3 did that, but I have no idea. JJ’s opinion about Alex Jensen is interesting: thinks he is the only guy for the job, but the massive drawback according to JJ is having to work for Harlan.
One aspect that JJ touched on is about the state of basketball today. He thinks it sucks. Players don’t want to work. Said he told K3 that he felt sorry for him given the game, and the corruption in recruiting. Maybe that is one reason K3 had issues with some players. He wanted them to work, become better, play defense, work for a good shot, pass the ball.
I just don’t know what to think. Both sides to this debate have merit. One thing that I believe is that we make our own breaks in life. Maybe that is why K3 was tapping Europe. Work to get kids to come to Utah where he ran a clean program and got kids to graduate except for the ones who left. He did have a long string of bad breaks. In the end, that string is what sank him. JJ’s comment on the quality of Utah’s players was also telling: they are not very good.
bingo! Doesn’t want to own up to the fact that he was wrong about Larry getting canned, so he creates another account and trashes Mark Harlan for making him look stupid.
I love JJ’s passion, but you can’t tell me the majority of players on Utah’s roster don’t want to work, that’s B.S! Are you going to tell me with a straight face that our core group of Jones, Januuten, Larssen, Martinez, Allen, Carlson, Battin, etc didn’t bust their ass all year long. I don’t believe it or buy it and its unfair.
No. As a matter of fact, Pimm discouraged players gaining any bulk. I was friends with one of the players in that era, and he said that Pimm would get upset if players put on weight.
Where JJ said that he was referring to college BB players today, that was not Utah’s players. He said its all 3 point shows, little D. I’m not even sure I buy that, but he said it. Sorry, I had beginning in the same paragraph that ended with Utah’s players. But I did not mean to conflate the two. So I can see how you connected those dots which was not my intent.
I agree, Utah’s players work hard and that was obvious. But JJ did comment on the quality of Utah’s players with respect to the Pac-12. Listen to his ESPN700 broadcast. I was just reporting the parts that stuck out to me.
JJ is good family friends with the K3 family. He said that so he was in a roundabout way defending Coach. Then he ended with that bit on Utah’s players. My reaction was this, since I like some of these guys, that is the problem in a nutshell. At the end of the day, responsibility has to be on Coach. He recruited them and developed them. Therein to me is the indictment that led to K3’s termination. Great guy, not connecting on some level somewhere, somehow with these kids.
I don’t really understand basketball. It appears to be a very physical game without the real rule structure of other physical game sports. It seems to rely upon refereeing and it’s hard to really understand what exactly is going on… but, as stated, I’m ignorant.
That said, how does Gonzaga do what they do every year? I mean, is it coaching alone? Is it something in the water? How can they possibly recruit such a stellar team and do so well, - relatively, every year for such a small school? If the coach is that amazing, why is he not coaching the pros?
I’m just curious.
Primary themes: Talent evaluation, player development, culture, coaching.
Secondary themes: Success begets success, players recruit other players, transfers want to win & get a shot at making money at the game.
Donnie Daniels has been at the top - here in '98, long time at Gonzaga - and he’s seen a program not measure up & and fail, most recently here. He’s been a head coach, he’s settled into being a trusted wise assistant. It would be interesting to hear what he has to say, outside of loyalties and filters associated with a current job.
My sense is it’s a delicate art, that evolves over time. How to get talented players and have them want to stay? How to get the last 5% of potential out of players, without having them detest you & playing the game?
I’ll bite. Coaching college could just be fun. College is fun. Developing young players could just be fun. Mark Few just loves coaching college kids and has no desire whatsoever to coach pros. He loves living in a smaller town in Washington. He has built something to admire.
Mark Few is a great coach, with the right disposition, and personality and he has ways of relating to players where he gets the absolute most from them. Its him. He is that good. He knows basketball, X-Os. So his teams win, while Gonzaga is a bigger fish in a small pond.
Once the team demonstrations winning year after year better quality players want to play on that team. That takes time, but once the winning begins and the kids like the coach and stick around for four years, well, winning begets winning and better players beget better players. Its a process built on a foundation of the coach and his excellent choices in staff.
And that is fun. Success breeds success.
Edit: I just read @Ma-ake’s post above where he also but first used the verb “begets”. I did not see that when I wrote my note. That is just spot on; he hit the nail on the head.
I watched BYU almost none this year - I simply don’t care about them. Less than 10 minutes the entire season. Maybe 5.
But the glimpses I’ve seen of Lohner don’t make me think he would have been a big difference maker.
Example: we made Jaime Jacquez of UCLA look like Shaquille freaking O’Neal trying to tear down the backboard with a 2 handed tomahawk jam going right down the key. Lohner did the same Matador Defense maneuver and Jacquez went right down the middle with a 2 handed monster jam.
To me Lohner is Riley Battin with curly hair, has to be a better shooter, probably doesn’t have Battin’s hang-ups from being stymied by PAC forwards over & over again.
Either Jacquez is a pretty damn good athlete disguised as an average 6-8 forward, or both Utah and BYU have less than average athletes trying to stop him, or something in-between.
We really need a coach who can recruit so we’re not lamenting the loss of a heavy legged player who left us for them.