ah yes… the classic, “what other options are there?” retort when your guy isn’t getting the job done, and everyone knows it, including you.
Majerus’ “oh-fense” has nothing to do with this conversation.
Larry’s offense is ugly sometimes, and good at others. He claims that it isn’t his fault that the shots aren’t going in. It’s his job to recruit players that can make shots in pac-12 games. He has done no such thing.
Larry’s salary is irrelevant? BAHAHAHAHAHA! In the past? Is he working for free now? Last I checked, he’s still getting paid waaaaay more than he’s worth. If Larry left and one of his many assistant coaches took over I’m sure they would also not get us to the NCAA tournament, while saving the AD several million dollars. That is better than the current situation. No denying it. Tommy Connor, Daniels, Jones… Any of them would be better than the current guy.
success = getting to the tourney more than half of the time.
Larry is not successful. Give the job to his assistant and let them not make the NCAA tournament, and save the school some money.
W/L record and what other options are there are completely relevant and really the only things that matter.
Larry’s buyout is nearly as much as his remaining salary so you are wrong, his salary isn’t relevant. If you had a problem with his contract, where are your objections from five years ago? That when you should have griped, it’s too late now.
Larry is a big name coach who can get the highly recruited athletes. Fire him and hire some no-name assistant and we will be last place in the conference.
Utah basketball has a lot of problems, the head coach isn’t one of them. Start with the AD and fans, both are terrible. The MUSS is the worst student section in the PAC 12, by a mile.
One point that always jumped out to me is the 2016 recruiting class. Coming off the sweet 16, and a first round draft pick, Larry was swinging for the fences in recruiting. Markannen, Tillie, Collins, Lightfoot. Never offered Yoeli.
After the 2016 tournament ended with a blowout to the zags, we lost Taylor, Tucker and Loveridge to graduation and Wright, Chapman, Mawien, and Reyes to transfer. We lost Ogbe to retirement/transfer and then we lost Poeltl to the draft.
We replaced them with two transfers in Sed Barefield and Dave Collette, Jayce Johnson, a top 100 recruit who could sure rebound at a good clip but otherwise didn’t blow anyone away, Dev Daniels who would last 1 year before using his boot from the U as a life wake up call, JoJo Zamora who was meh for 1 year before moving on, Ty Rawson who was better than many thought he would ever be as a senior, and then Chris Seeley and Jakub Jokl who were nothing but roster fill.
Thats obviously nothing new for anyone, but when we look back at where things went south, I point to that. Not getting anyone who was a 3-4 year cornerstone of a winning program in that class after back to back tournament runs/appearances whatever you want to call it.
It’s amazing how fragile success can be. One little mistake to not offer a local kid had so much sway on the direction of the program. Had we offered Childs, I don’t think Larry would be anywhere near the hot seat now.
I’m guessing, but I think part of the issue is Larry is old school, like Rick. 20 / 30 years ago, that was much more acceptable by players. Times have changed and Larry needs to become more relatable to todays players. Coach Daniels came to Utah and was the bridge between Rick and the players. I was hoping he could do the same for Larry. Also, the more the team has success, the more accepting the players become of old school coaching. If, by any means, Larry could win the conference, his coaching style would quickly become more acceptable. Could it be that international players are more acquainted with old school coaching? Again, just guessing. Oddly, I would expect that Larry could best recruit big men due to his background. It is a mystery to me as to why Larry doesn’t consistently have one of the couple of best big men in the Pac. Last, in today’s world, unwinding coaching decisions are much more difficult than the fan base can possibly understand. It is not rinse and repeat tries to get it right. Improvement from here, while 11 other teams in the league, many with more advantages, are driven to do the same, takes a lot of skill and luck.
