Ranking JMH Center head coaches

[Guba]

… because I think Boylen did more damage to the program By being a clown. Giac had personal health issues that kept him from functioning as well as he might have, although I agree he was the wrong man at the wrong time. We can thank Mark Few for that, because Few adamantly told Chris Hill that Giac was the real deal, and that Hill would be sorry if he didn’t make the hire. Hill believed Few. Whoops.

We can probably blame Boylen for missing out on Nico Mannion. Back in 07-09 or so I used to work with Pace Mannion on Jazz broadcasts. Pace was great to work with and we had a lot of great discussions about Utah Basketball. He told me on a number of occasions that he had tried to give input and encourage Boylen to reach and counsel with alumni about the program and bring alumni in to speak to the team, etc. Boylen was not interested at all. Pace once remarked something to the effect that Boylen poisoned the well so to speak with regard to alumni. Apparently Larry has worked hard to rebuild relationships with alumni since then but I suspect that it may have been too little too late to be able to land Mannion. Just speculation on my part so take it FWIW.

[sancho]

Seems short sighted by Boylen. It’s also uncharacteristic of him. I bet his side of the story differs from Pace’s.

At any rate, I don’t think we were ever landing that kid. He chose Zona at a time of turmoil and possible sanction. We can’t have been close if that’s the case. May he fail spectacularly in Tuscon!

[MinnesotaUte]

Lots of teams ran it. I remember a game between Wyoming and byu-provo where the final score was something like 23-20. UTEP definitely ran a slow down offense. The announcers would always say a 10 point lead by UTEP was the same as a 20 point lead by anyone else.

During the Majerus hay-day announcers used to say that a lot about Utah too. Such a deliberate offense with few turnovers and great shot selection, with stellar rebounding on both ends, and incredibly disciplined man2man D. Great recipe for success.

[orangemarlin]

When I was in high school in Utah, Jerry Pimm brought a couple of Ute players to teach basketball skills (I think it was Judkins, but that was ancient days). I became Ute fan on that day, and decided against going to UCLA or USC.

Of course, I went to grad school at Syracuse because they had just gotten to the Final 4 when I was applying.

Yes, I made decisions on education based on the basketball team. But I’ll always think the world about Pimm.

BTW, many years later, I took a job with a company in Salt Lake City (after I had been away for 30 years), and my company put me up in a hotel in downtown while I looked for a new house and move my belongings from Florida. I swear I saw Rick Majerus all the time. Did he live in that hotel?

[Utahute72]

I grew up in the Jack Gardner era, talk about non descript pre season schedules. His philosophy was you built confidence by beating up on a lot of lesser teams.