I didn’t bother to click, I don’t want to give him free money.
The title was saying that our Utes are losing the ability to get back to the NCAA tourney. I think we’ve debated that one almost to death. Isn’t he now a day late a dollar short in coming to this conclusion? I sure seems that way to me. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’m not close to the program.
I can see that turnover seems to be our major issue, well the culture that allows for high turnover perhaps. From 2000 miles away it seems that Larry doesn’t have the ability to screen players for his type of desired play, or adjust his coaching to what players he has. Again, I’m just looking at this from 2k miles away, and what news I get is usually from here.
I didn’t read it either but any basketball program is two really good recruits away from the NCAA tournament. If next year’s class is as good as the hype they will back in the tournament and Kinahack will be writing an article about how Pope, at byu, was only successful in his first year because he was living off of Dave Rose’s recruits.
I hope that you are correct. This lack of progress, or visible progress for me, is getting old. The lack of tourney invites, let alone advancements sure is tiring to me.
Well, I didn’t read the Kinahan article, and I wont bother reading it either.
Turnover is certainly an issue. But we really aren’t much higher than the national average.
I think that in order of importance to 2020-2021’s NCAA hopes, I think that Both Gach was the 6th most important Ute and Matt Van Komen was 11th. In other words, we lost one guy that will kind of hurt us and one guy that wont be missed in any way shape or form.
We are still in a great spot for a tourney bid in 2021.
i agree we didn’t lose that much, but I’m not sure I see us in a great spot for a tourney bid. We weren’t even close to being a bubble team. We could improve enough to make it, but that would be a huge jump.
Also, in saying we didn’t lose much with Gach, we are ignoring that we did lose a great deal of potential. And potential is what we’re banking on right now. We’re banking on the improvement of some combination of incoming/returning players. Gach was one more lottery ticket (with big upside) that we were hoping on.
I dont really see it as a huge jump. Here are my reasons:
-We were a likely NIT team this year.
-Jones, Carlson, and Jantunen should all take a big step forward going into their second year.
-Gach was a bad fit in that starting lineup. We needed shooting at that spot and he was terrible in that regard. At bare minimum he could have been a defensive help and he was not…to put it nicely. He also had every chance imagineable to reach some of that potential, and didnt. If he can find a system, be it in college, europe, or the g league where he can be the primary ball handler and running an offense isn’t something he is asked to do, he could have some success. Ian Martinez could/should be able to provide everything Gach did and more in year 1. Yeah, he is an unknown, but ill happily take that unknown over a poor fit in gach. Gach would be best on our roster as a 6th man with shooters around him.
-All 3 new guys are athletes the caliber of which we dont often see at Utah. If they can gradually develop and contribute, they should give us a really nice lift.
-Timmy and Rylan can and will take over as the leaders of this team.
Im all in. As long as Timmy Allen comes back. We will head to the big dance.
Sure, but we both said the same thing in different ways: getting to the tournament depends on a number of returning players taking a big step forward and a number of new players meeting expectations. You see that as likely to happen, and I’m not as certain.
The season depends on lottery tickets of various odds, and Gach gave us one more lottery ticket. What if he returned and did bust his butt on defense? What if he was the guy about to take a big step forward? That’s what I meant when I said we lost potential.
Perhaps, but Pope seems like a pretty good coach and recruiter so time will tell. He did get that tall dude from Purdue, perhaps the #1 transfer and he stated it was due to believing Pope gave him the best chance to get better and improve his NBA stock. A little easier to recruit bball down there than fball (just need a couple white shooters and some int’l tall/big guy).
I agree, time will tell on Pope but he won this past season with a lot of seniors the other guy brought in.
My thoughts on byu b-ball is that their ceiling is the Sweet 16 once every 15 years and I don’t think Pope is going to change that. They will never get to Gonzaga’s or Saint Marys’ level. There are a lot of mormon kids who are in the 6’2" to 6’6" range who can play the off-guard or small forward. Danny Ainge was the last impact NBA player and that was two generations and a lot of coaches ago. Even if Pope is good he can’t change those facts. He might be better than Dave Rose but I doubt it.
I also think Pope, for as much enthusiasm as he has, sees BYU as a stepping stone to a bigger program.
I will give him credit, he had a good message to share (we were an NCAA tournament team this year and we lost most of our contributors, you can come in right away and help keep it going.) and kids are listening.
PK is the most useless sports commentator I’ve ever worked with. He was never ever prepared for any interview he ever did. Never read any background emails. He probably doesn’t even write his own stuff. Probably takes talking points from his editor and strings together the final product. I honestly don’t know how he has a job! If I were his boss he would have been fired long ago.