Basketball was played, part IX

[GameForAnyFuss]

Weird game at the Hunty tonight…very open game against an opponent that was pretty wild on both ends of the floor. Utah won 81-63 to move to 7-2. Radford falls to 9-3. Hunter Erickson had a career high 18 on 5/7 shooting.

On the flip side, I got my first look at Lohner. He’s a big body and a load down low, but he seems to not actually be too good at basketball. His wheelhouse appears to be finishing contested dunks and that’s about it. Also, the story of Mongol Mike will someday rival D.B. Cooper as the most mysterious disappearing act in American history. He started, played about two minutes, and never returned. He didn’t even start the second half, where starting your same starting lineup is pretty much an unwritten rule in basketball. He had a bad turnover, and that appeared to be enough for Craig to give him the hook. Not sure what’s going on there.

Go Utes!

[Kellso]

Last game Lohner played well. He hedges very well on screens, move his feet well and adds toughness to the lineup. He might need a few games to mesh.

[nothavingit]

Smith hates Dawes- that apparent. Nothing is wrong he just doesn’t like the guy.

If you were here last year, Smith will play you. If you are a show boat and kiss his butt, Smith will play you. He knows his job isn’t in jeopardy and doesn’t really care about building a good team. If he did lineups would be different, talent would play and they might actually have a decent season.

They are in for a rude awakening when conference starts. This soft preseason boring schedule is ridiculous!

[The Miami Ute]

Mike might not last the whole season. And what I mean by that is that at this rate, he might be gone before the season ends. It really looks like he lacks the physicality to play a P4 schedule.

[Utopia]

Really disappointing trajectory. Had such a great start to the season and was growing as a fan favorite, then his play basically fell off a cliff in a matter of a few games. I predicted athleticism and physicality were going to be the challenge for him, but I didn’t think he would become completely irrelevant.

[Utopia]

I didn’t see the game but noticed in the boxscore that Dawes didn’t play. He only played 4 min each of the two previous games after averaging about 20 min in the first six games and being pretty productive (10pts/8reb) despite being a little “raw”. I wonder what’s going on with him; haven’t heard anything about an injury. I was pretty high on his potential and certainly think he would be a more capable player than Whalin, who continues to get steady minutes even with the additions of Lovering, Keller, Lohner.

Ausar’s minutes are also declining, which is understandable. He is undersized and underskilled, especially compared to P4 competition. Of all the transfer newcomers, it seems only Little is going to be a significant contributor. Early season looked somewhat promising, but I don’t like how things are trending lately. I fear it could get really ugly come conference schedule.

[nothavingit]

Dawes isn’t injured. Really sucks for a coach to waste talent like that just to prioritize guys who were here last year.

No wonder a lot of the team left- and all the coaches. Can’t blame them at all after seeing this bad preseason.

[Utopia]

I haven’t seen anything impressive whatsoever about Keller (also a newcomer), but he is also getting playing time over Dawes. It doesn’t make sense when only judging performance and potential.

[GameForAnyFuss]

I think Dawes is simply a freshman who is a victim of the fact that the two centers both returned from injury at the same time.

[Utopia]

Dawes is a newcomer, but he’s a sophomore who got decent playing time and was reasonably productive as a freshman. He looked pretty good in the first six games and was very productive in his minutes (10pts/8reb). He showed so much potential that I thought he could end up becoming our best frontcourt player this year. He was much more productive than Whalin and is physically much more suited for P4 competition. I just had a look at their stats and the difference is even more substantial than I thought. I was expecting Whalin to lose his minutes with the return/addition of the other frontcourt players, but he’s kept most of his minutes while Dawes has lost all of his minutes. I haven’t seen anything impressive whatsoever about Keller (also a newcomer), but he is getting playing time over Dawes. Based purely on performance, it doesn’t make sense. Something else must be going on for Dawes to be completely benched.

[nothavingit]

Dawes isn’t a freshman or a center

[AZUTE]

I don’t understand smith and his rotations at all. I predict 8-3 non conference record and the Big12 is gonna be brutal. I don’t see more than 6 or 7 conference wins and no post season which will result in the end of the Craig Smith era at Utah.

This is just kind of a lost year. There is no future of Utah basketball in any reasonable scenario that has Smith in it.

I think deep down he knows he’s a dead man coaching and that explains his rotations and substitution patterns

[Utopia]

Smith’s recruiting has been an abject failure. It’s clear he can’t recruit enough P4 level talent to be competitive. Madsen is currently our top scorer and he’s a very streaky one-dimensional player who would only be a third-option/complementary type player on a tourney team.

Lohner (not a Smith recruit), who is not in basketball shape and has had minimal pratice time with the team, has already outperformed most of the frontcourt in his first two games.

Smith is in his fourth year and the best player he has had was a Coach K holdover who Smith was lucky was a devout Ute. Can you imagine just how much worse the last few seasons would’ve been without Carlson?

[AZUTE]

It’s a broken record but no matter who Utah brings in to coach next season the university needs to up its nil game for basketball.

Right now nil budget for Bball is about 3 mil. It’s needs to be closer to 5 to even remotely compete with other big12 teams for national recruits.

[Utopia]

Certainly doesn’t seem like there is any reason to be optimistic about the hoops program rising from the dead. Basketball seems like an afterthought with football getting all of the attention now. Unless we find a hoops enthusiast benefactor to put some money into NIL (like TDS), the program seems destined to keep rotting in irrelevance.

[The Miami Ute]

Funny how Utah State is on its third head coach in three years and they still do well. Smith is the fruit of the poisoned tree. He never would have gotten the Utah job but for Harlan not wanting to be bothered and doing an actual coaching search. If you look at all of the teams that Utah has beaten this season, well, they’re teams that any P4 basketball school should be beating easily anyways. I predict that this team will finish either just over .500 for the season or just under it. I also predict that this record will be sold by the administration as part of the “acclimation process” to a new conference and we’ll have Craig with us once again when the 25-26 season rolls around.

[chinngiskhaan]

I don’t think anyone with a brain is expecting this team to do well in Big12 play. We would be a decent MWC team, thats about it.

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