Mens BB

By him saying that, I had to conclude that this is already a done deal. Otherwise why go out on that limb dragging the rest of the program with him.

The last thing a prospective new coach wants to hear is a Utah legend saying in essence, any hire that isn’t Alex is a disappointment and will fail. He also was highly critical of Craig for not allowing alumni to ‘help him’. What person would take a high pressure job upon hearing that a bunch of people from the outside are going to tell him how to do his job and if he doesn’t listen he will be fired and summarily excoriated openly in the media.

He also said at one point “If the decision can be announced sooner…”, not decision made, not candidate found, not if the search goes quickly, so…

My conclusion is it’s done, or Josh did us no favors and would have been much better off keeping his trap closed (as much as a love him for some of the best bball watching years of my life).

You bring some good points Minnesota. I think the biggest disconnect with Smith was recruiting and style of play not actual coaching. You can’t tell me there isn’t any local players the last couple years that aren’t better than Little and Erickson. Smith just recruits talent but some don’t fit his system. The most successful past coaches had a system and recruited players to fill roles in that system. That’s why the turnovers are so high.

I agree with some of the comments that it kind of seems like it’s a done deal to hire Jensen. It seems like a major factor in the hiring decision this go around is booster support. Not sure if this is accurate, but lots of talk that the boosters had turned against Smith. In my opinion, not too many candidates would get the boosters and some fans more re-engaged than Jensen, especially if Andre Miller also got brought in as an assistant.

I am getting really sick and tired of folks on here constantly saying that Larry was a better recruiter and Smith was a better coach. I’m sorry but the numbers just simply do not support that absurd theory. Here are some real numbers:

Larry had 5 20+ win seasons in 10 years, 50%.
Smith had 1 20+ win season in 4 years, 25%
Larry’s overall win percentage was .568 overall and .503 in conference
Smith’s overall win percentage was .512 overall and .395 in conference
Larry had to start and manage the transition from G5 to P5, Smith did not.
Larry made the NCAA tournament twice, getting to the round of 32 once and the Sweet 16 once.
Smith never made the NCAA tournament.
Larry made the NIT 3 times.
Smith made the NIT 1 time.
Larry followed Josh Grant’s key to success by landing local top talent like Jordan Loveridge, David Collette, Rylan Jones, and Brandon Carlson.
Smith did not and also lost our best returning big to our hated rivals down south.
Larry recruited, coached, and put multiple guys into the NBA and they are still in the league.
Smith put Carlson in the league but he was not his recruit.
Larry knew the importance of guards in the college game and had some excellent players during his time here like Delon, Taylor, Van Dyke, Wright, Bonham, Barefield, and Jones.
Smith gave us Worster and Madsen and that is about it unless you want to count Devon who didn’t play a whole season and then left us for St. Johns.

I could keep going but there is absolutely zero objective facts supporting Smith as the better coach than Larry K.
He was not a better coach and he was not even in the ballpark in recruiting. If you want to compare him in a good light, you can pull up Boylen and Ray and you might have a case.