Where is Larry?

You could certainly “get in the building” for far less money by just buying nose bleed seats and moving down since half the place is empty. And if things don’t improve that will be even easier.

Delon Wright – JC Transfer

Hopefully there won’t be any of those “panic pickups” 😉

Per your opening gambit viz the local media. Been done already. Arguably Utah does have an issue with recruiting but K3 has done quite well to this point in time. Grasshopper, Rome er Gonzaga was not built in a day, or a year or few…

I am willing to give Krysko a mulligan on last year based off of his cancer and some unforeseen circumstances, but the pendulum is starting to swing far to the negative side for me as well. Its as if Larry believes that as long as he gets in a groove by the time his contract expires in 2021 that he can take his time.

He did a remarkable job his first 4-5 years, what has happened to that? There is no momentum in the program right now.

I’m not really happy about the transfers. That said, I haven’t seen anyone mention Seeley. He’s still on the team I believe, unless there’s something that I don’t know about.

Since the start of LOI is on April 12 and he has 3 scholarships to give, I suspect he is out recruiting.

I’ve attended Ute basketball since 75. I have great season tickets, (cause I’m a Ute faithful geezer.)  Faithfully stayed through the dark years. But I’m disappointed, primarily in the consistently lousy home schedule.  With rare exceptions, pre-conference home games aren’t worth wasting the trip to see.  I’m seriously considering not renewing. Once that happens it’s unlikely I’ll  attend again; when I quit Jazz season tickets, I didn’t miss them for a minute.

Hopefully he is out finding an ace recruiter to hire who will greatly upgrade the coaching staff. 

Even with an inexperienced team needing to develop, I’d rather see some quality opponents school us on the court (as even losing to a great opponent will teach the team things that will help them down the road) rather than win a bunch of boring blowouts against inferior opponents from the NAIA, Div 2, or weaker Div 1 conferences (that teaches our team nothing). 

You’re letting the local media hyperbole get to you, let’s not wring our hands over this list of mostly scrubs and problem children:

Transferred last year:
Chris Reyes – Produced similar numbers in his JR year as Jayce Johnson did his FR year. Reyes would have played sparingly if at all this past season with Johnson, Collette, Kuzma, and Rawson in front of him at the 4 and 5
Isaiah Wright – Averaged 2 ppg and 13 mpg as a SO. I see no reason to believe those numbers would have improved had he stayed as he had almost the exact same numbers as a FR
Brekott Chapman – Showed great promise as a FR, but was unwilling to do what coaches asked
Kenneth Ogbe – Unreliable physically, likely would have backed up Bonam this past season, as a JR averaged 5 ppg and 12 mpg. If he could have stayed healthy (big if) those numbers would have improved IMO. Would have been a contributor, if healthy. Played in 33 games for UVU this past season, averaging 11 ppg in 24 mpg
Austin Montgomery – walk on who never would have played meaningful minutes at Utah. Not a PAC level player
Brandon Miller – Not a PAC level player who wasn’t going to get meaningful minutes at Utah
Makol Mawien – Not a PAC level player who wasn’t going to get meaningful minutes at Utah
Transferred this year:
Tim Coleman – didn’t step on the court due to injury
JoJo Zamora – Averaged 20 mpg and 7 ppg last season. Would have been a backup next season for sure, possibly a starter
Devon Daniels – showed considerable promise as a FR, but caused too many problems off the court
Jakub Jokl – averaged 1 point in 4 minutes per game. Wasn’t going to ever play meaningful minutes, not a PAC level player

Daniels, Chapman, and Ogbe (two problem children and a player who couldn’t stay healthy) would have had opportunities to be major contributors had they stayed and Zamora likely would have been a big minute backup. Reyes and Wright effectively got recruited over and would have played sparingingly, if at all. Montgomery, Miller, Jokl, Mawien and Coleman were never going to play any meaningful minutes. When we hear about all the tranfers over the last two seasons (but nothing about the fact that two years ago there were zero tranfers) we’re really talking about four players that could have helped us win games had they stayed. As I said two were problem children and one couldn’t stay healthy. Zamora is a bit of a head scratcher, as he would have played big minutes next year, especially with Daniels gone. There’s definitely more there that we haven’t (at least I haven’t) heard.

All that being said Larry is not off the hook, I like that he targets top level talent like Lauri Markinnen, Emmanual Akot, Frank Jackson, and Zach Collins. The problem is he’s not landing any of this talent, so it may be time to reassess recruiting tactics. I also like that he’s taking chances on foreign born players like Jokl, looking for the next Poeltl. Jokl is obviously not the next Poeltl, but it’s tough to say “do some more homework” before signing a guy from Eastern Europe. Of course, if we can land Mark Smith (4* guard) that would certainly lessen the blow of losing Daniels and Zamora. If (big if) we can land Smith and get Kuzma back (another big if) we’ll have a lineup capable of challenging for the PAC next year, if that happens nobody is going to care about these tranfers. And if we do land Smith we’ll still have three scholarships available for next season, there are several grad transfers looking for landing spots, so our lineup could change quite a bit over the next couple of months.

Possible 2017-18 lineup
1 Barefield, Van Dyke
2 Smith, TBD
3 Seeley, Tillman, Bealer
4 Kuzma, Rawson
5 Collette, Johnson