Chris Burgess Safe

As much as I detest Zoob athletics I have to say that this has been an amazing sequence for them and I am really jealous. They had a coach good enough for arguably the most resource-rich program in the country to lure him away. Then they hired the highest-paid NBA associate head coach that has been linked with multiple NBA head coach positions. They are reportedly paying him over 4m/yr which would put him in the top 10 in the country- good enough to keep him even if he is successful. Oh and he is 42 years old, ambitious, and looking to prove himself.

Meanwhile our coach is rumored to not like recruiting- arguably the most important part of coaching college athletics. Anyone who has done any coaching at any level understands that the best way to look smart is to start with the best players.

Suddenly the Zoobs are in one of the best basketball leagues with possibly one of the best young coaches.

Oy Vey! I am in envy town.

Hopefully the weirdness of Provo will provide adequate road blocks to their success but my confidence in this has been shaken.

Fair points and virtually any new coach may not succeed. I was not trying to make a prediction of how well Pope will do @ Kentucky but rather point out that though Kentucky swung and missed on their top targets, they still wanted Pope. Do you hear of anyone trying to lure Smith away from us?

Many programs would like to hire Whittingham and almost all of us would hate to see him go. If someone bought out Smith’s contract and Utah could start from scratch, I would not expect to see much hand wringing from Ute fans.

As for how Young will do, time will tell. Whomever is ponying up the 4.2m/yr for his salary will undoubtedly have considered organizing some NIL coin as well. I’d be bullish on the program’s potential were I a Zoob.

As for Utah’s prospects- fingers crossed. I was able to attend the Iowa NIT game and it was a lot of fun. Empty arena, but a lot of fun. We arrived a few minutes after tipoff and they charged half price for the tiks with was only $5 or $10. My brother bought the tiks for two families and grandparents, I tried to pay him back and he laughed at me. The total was barely more than the price of a sandwich. We all had a good time. It was really easy to make the Jumbotron cam because of such a small crowd. We would attend again but there was certainly not a feeling of being on the cusp of the big time.