I think the speed in which this was done after Alex Jensen declined suggests that Johnnie Bryant was not on Harlan’s list or, if he was, he was below Smith.
I wanted Giac, Boylen and LK to do great things at the U. I hope Smith does great things at the U.
We know AJ was plan A. There were a lot of sources on that.
That would be the first step toward really winning over a lot of fans who don’t really know who he is (like me).
FWIW.
Here’s the short version of his time at USU:
The good: Utah state beat SDSU regularly over the past three years. They had a Portuguese center who averaged a double double and blocked a ton of shots. They went to the tournament twice.
The bad: Smith went 0-3 vs BYU. He lost in the first round both times he went to the tournament. He’s never landed a big recruit, as he inherited his best players at USU.
He mostly recruited international players while at USU.
Even if AJ was plan A with a 50% chance, checking on him and JB might have been somewhat strategic to pacify boosters and maybe lower the temperature on expectations. But with the speed, they were either talking or Craig was so eager to ‘win the lottery’ after a bad week.
Smith can recruit UW’s team. They have 5 in the portal. We could call ourselves the Huskies. Pitch them that they can play man defense, forget the zone.
I think the problem is that Harlan thought this was 100%. It was a done deal… until it wasn’t.
Not about Smith per se - who may be terrific - but is this episode an indication of just how low this program has sunk?
That’s crazy. He won COY in his first two seasons up there.
This is our fourth hire since Majerus…we haven’t been able to attract a big name even once. That says something about our program.
I’m excited about Smith.
I have a friend who used to work in the USU athletic Dept. My friend says that Smith is really obviously a “next level” coach who understands the college game and (maybe more importantly) college kids. Smith may not be a home run, but - as Sancho pointed out earlier - nobody is. Let’s wait and see.
What we know now is that Smith is a solid coach with a lot of potential. Let’s see if he can build on Larry’s foundation.
Maybe Smith can start by designing an in-bound play with 15 seconds remaining that results in a shot attempt.
I’m not sure why you’re doing this. It’s clear AJ was plan A. It’s okay for us to acknowledge that and to move on. Hopefully, in five years, we’ll laugh about how lucky we were that he backed out.
Larry’s play to force overtime against USC belongs in the Louvre. As does the game winner from PVD.
Agreed.
PVD’s UCLA miracle is a great great moment. That entire 2 or 3 final minutes was magical.
I think it’s quite plausible Harlan had multiple irons in the fire. I would have been disappointed if he didn’t.
AJ & JB had some risk because they’re deep in the NBA and the recruiting aspect of the college game alone makes it a high risk for them.
At 48, Smith is just 4 years older than Alex. (Times flies, huh?)
I’ll hope he can hang onto most of the current roster & recruit like a maniac, then we’ll see. Hopefully he can have some success and they we can worry about if he’ll take off for a bigger job. That would my ideal worry in 3 years.
Welcome, Coach Smith!
As was Utah’s comeback viz. Plummer in Boulder against CU.
I laughed sadly at this one.
It may well be that Harlan is being much more clever about this than we give him credit for. By starting off with AJ, he was taking a bit of a longshot. (It’s no accident that the information about AJ got out.) Now Harlan does not have to face this question from fans for the next few years: “Why didn’t we go after Alex Jensen?”