Craig Smith Fired Today

[Asmitty]

News breaking that Coach Smith has been let go. The timing is a bit surprising but truthfully, I think that if we want to be great, this is what had to be done. I know Mark Harlan gets a lot of heat, and he deserves some of it, but I think this was a tougher decision to make financially, so I applaud him for being willing to do it. Now let’s go get an ex-Ute that has NBA connections and can get our big donors to pony up.

[//r00t4Utes]

Came to post the same thing…. here’s a link

Yahoo Sports Link

[SteelUte]

Strange timing- I’ll wait to hear the details. Think he was making some improvement, but not enough. I guess we’ll see who is tapped as the replacement. Coach Smith seemed like a good guy, but maybe something else was going on.

[//r00t4Utes]

Sure to the timing, and it being strange as you said. The first 2 thoughts that came to mind were that with him entering his last year after this season, extension thoughts were not going well, and both he and the school decided to get an early headstart on their next move. And 2nd was maybe they already have a candidate in mind.

[The Miami Ute]

Smith’s original contract was for six years. That means that he had two more seasons, until 2027, after this one. I will say that it only surprises me due to the timing. Couldn’t they have done it at the end of the season? His results surely didn’t warrant an extension. Personally, I had already seen enough of Smith after his second season to know that he wasn’t the guy. It will be interesting to see how the team reacts to Smith’s dismissal.

[//r00t4Utes]

Miami, that’s what I was saying, or trying to about Smith’s contract and extension and why extension talks could have already been taking place.

It is really rare nowadays for coaches to go into their last season of a contract. They either get extended or agree to post ways, players may not play a hard or listen if they don’t know the coach will be back and the coach isn’t as good of he has to worry about that.

So this off-season and all the talk would be about the extension, and then during this next session would be about the extension and be a distraction. So if they knew they weren’t going to offer and Smith saw the writing on the wall. I was speculating that could explain the timing.

That or if they had someone in mind and wanted the headstart or Smith did as well to get his name out to his desired schools.

[The Miami Ute]

Yeah but, what I’m saying, is that Utah is on the hook to Smith for two more years after this one. Smith’s putative last season with the Utes would have been 2026-2027. Do you see? If Smith was still the HC, next season wouldn’t be his last under contract.

[ProudUte]

I believe it is the right decision. If your team is 350th in MBB in free throw shooting – you should be fired. However, I am not sure about the timing.

It is sad to me that the Ute basketball program which had so much rich history has to be rebuilt from scratch. It will not be an easy job.

[GameForAnyFuss]

I’m pretty ambivalent about this news. Craig just did nothing for me. Didn’t love him, didn’t hate him.

All that matters now is:
1. Who do we get?
2. Will some booster step up and give us some damn NIL?
3. Will any of this make a difference, or will we still remain the same 40th-percentile team we’ve been for the last 6 coaches?

[Tony (admin)]

Wow glad I stopped by! Big news (and had to delete some spam)

[The Miami Ute]

Big enough to get you back watching MBB at the JHC?

[UteManX]

Jensen and Miller are getting some traction, not just individually, but possibly together.

[chinngiskhaan]

That would bring fans back to the Hunty

[TruckStopTerrors]

Harlan made the initial hire, so he deserves the heat he gets in terms of everything. This had to happen. Surprised it happened right now, but Smith cannot recruit the talent needed. Good X’s and O’s guy and gets a lot out of his talent, but you have to be a good recruiter beyond the NIL stuff to be successful imo.

[Central Coast Ute]

Gotta have money to recruit. Even byu can land top talent and that has nothing to do with the coach.

[TruckStopTerrors]

I think it goes beyond just purely money. Smith has never been a good recruiter. You have to be a salesman in this business and he just isn’t. He couldn’t even sell himself to the “whales” to get the NIL funding. Doesn’t that tell us something? They didn’t buy into him. Realistic recruits we wanted most weren’t buying into him. He was just a bad hire.

[AlohaUte]

Wow, I’m really surprised. Hopefully we can find a great coach and really start driving NIL.

[NashvilleUteFan]

Seems like the only reason we would’ve done this now is if we had some candidates in mind already that we wanted to go after right away before the coaching carousel starts in the spring.

I like the idea of bringing in a guy with ties to the program. Honestly I was just so sick of Craig and his inability to win a game on the road regardless of the opponent. It was so pathetic. And his recruiting was just downright sorry. I’ll be watching this coaching search closely, we have to get this right.

Also from what I’ve heard, the boosters didn’t like Craig. If they get some say in who the next guy is, maybe they’ll be more inclined to fork over some NIL dough. We need some actual P5 players, and not just 1 or 2.

[UteFan Vineyard]

More important that X’s and O’s and player development these days is the ability to find big boosters who will throw money at NIL.

That should be the first thing we look for in a coach.

[UteNamedOg]

Whoever the new person is, I just want to have butts in seats. The revenue sharing program coupled with the of new students since 2022 will hopefully help. I’m about as good at collegiate athlete economics as the next couch GM, but this program seems stuck and in desperate need of any enthusiasm to get finances, recruiting, etc. going again.

[UteNamedOg]

Whoever the new person is, I just want to have butts in seats. The revenue sharing program coupled with the of new students since 2022 will hopefully help. I’m about as good at collegiate athlete economics as the next couch GM, but this program seems stuck and in desperate need of any enthusiasm to get finances, recruiting, etc. going again.

[Minnesota Ute]

If he lost the locker room in a big way, then that could explain it. If I was to read into it from my perspective, Craig just showed no consistency in the lineups and a stubbornness to certain aspects. I’ve mused extensively about how much more I feel like Keanu has to contribute, but yet he just can’t seem to get more than 15 min per game. Meanwhile, although it’s not a lot of minutes, why is Keller even playing?? Same with Hunter, sure he has hit a few big shots, but he just isn’t productive on the whole, yet he continued to get around 10 to 20 min per game. UCF was the first game under 10 min played (he played 9). Even the combinations he would put on the floor were often headscratchers. Instead of mixing in Keller with the starters to spell Lovering, he would for example bring in Keller along with Miro, Keanu, and Mason all at the same time. I didn’t write down the lineups so that could not exactly be right but I commented several times, it just seemed like mix & match.

I could see it being a number of things like that which I could see causing consternation among the boosters, ADs office, and in the locker room. When confidence is lost through out that group, then it’s time to make a change.

[//r00t4Utes]

I don’t think he had lost the locker room. The team was playing too hard, IMO.

Unless something specifically blew up quickly after last night’s game, that doesn’t seem likely to me.

[Minnesota Ute]

Yeah I dont disagree. And along those lines, if losing to 4-11 UCF despite team playing hard devolved into some finger pointing, it can turn in a hurry.

[Rick]

I am sorry but 19 turnovers in a college game is unacceptable vs. any foe, but one that has not won a game in 7 straight tries is beyond ridiculous. It is never a great time to fire someone but sometimes you have to rip off the band aid and just do it. This gives us some extra weeks to find a new coach before the off-season kicks in and hopefully the new hire can keep some (please NOT all) of our eligible players to build off of. For me it is Mike, Wahlin, Dawes, and Ausar and NO ONE else. We need a true point guard, a deadly shooting wing, and a solid big. We get studs in all three of those spots, with a good coach, we will be very competitive.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I couldn’t agree more Rick. The same 4 I would keep. The turnovers and lack of free throw success is on coaching. Smith never defined roles and never settled in to a rotation. Josh Grant interview backed these thoughts.

Watched Smith play a couple games for St Johns. He looked like a true point guard under Pittino. Coaching matters.

[pics]

I suggest you all listen to the Josh Grant interview on ESPN700 this afternoon with Spence. I found it to be very enlightening.

[The Miami Ute]

Spence said that Utah matched what Saint John’s offered Deivon Smith in NIL, but he still decided to leave. That right there is some incriminating stuff.

[Minnesota Ute]

OMG. Alex mfn Jensen!!

[//r00t4Utes]

As in the former player, Josh Grant. There’s a name I hadn’t heard in a while when people talk about former Utes.

Thanks for the heads up.

[hbUte]

I second the suggestion on listening to the Josh Grant interview by Spence. Lots of great stuff from Josh such as why Smith wasn’t successful and who the next coach should be and why.

One of best interviews I’ve ever listened to concerning anything related to Utah athletics.

Josh Grant on Smith dismissal & next moves

[Minnesota Ute]

#5 is sooooo candid. Either he is plugged in and this is happening. Or he is waaay out over his skis.

[FountainofUte]

Agreed. I can’t help but think that it’s the former, because the rest of what he’s saying makes too much sense. He knows it. I know it. We all know how Ute mbb becomes successful, and we all know it’s not going to work when the recipe is ignored.

[Minnesota Ute]

I thought it was very interesting when he said “if the decision can be announced sooner”, which s is the ure implied that the decision has been made not that a coach needs to be found.

[Minnesota Ute]

What I got out of the Josh Grant interview:

The decision has been made to hire Alex. It makes sense, as he was 10 years as an assistant in SLC for the Jazz (when the Jazz were good), but has been in Dallas the last couple years. He had a brief stint as a college coach before joining the Jazz. It would make sense that he would want to get back to SLC.

It sounded like others (Andre, Josh, Jimmy, & others) have offered to come back and help out, but their overtures, while not outright rebuffed, were ignored. And it sounded like if (when?) Alex returns, then these guys would all pitch in. Not sure if that means all joining the staff or in more of a consulting role, not sure. But regardless, it seems like Craig really froze out a lot of folks that were trying to help him.

Being a long time manager, I can tell you that sometimes ‘help’ isn’t help, but also, if you have a community of former star players that care about the program (analogous to former or current high performing employees), and you decide that you don’t want to involve them, you do so at your own risk. You can alienate other individuals that hold them in high regard, you can flat miss valuable information, you lose the opportunity to leverage additional resources, you miss out on building your own credibility by turning those individuals into supporters rather than detractors. If you don’t acknowledge and leverage individuals that were part of past success, then you are effectively going it alone and if you don’t find success, you’ll suffer for it.

Hell, while Majerus was a genius and had winning to back him, the fact that he froze out the local media ultimately lead to a lot of problems and eventually him leaving in my opinion.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Smith thought his success pre Utah would transfer to a higher level of competition Minnesota. The talent and athleticism is hard to overcome if you can’t match it. The Josh Grant interview showed Smith’s lack of respect for past players.

[Trailgoat]

Agree MU. The JG interviews seem calculated right after the announcement. Josh was no BS. Solid interview. Football needs a stand up player to call out what’s been going on with football instead of all the lay down local media and ex players afraid to call out the BS like JG did for BB. Harlan needs a win hire or he’s next. All the AJ noise flying over the SLC airwaves indicates to me AJ is already locked in as the new head coach. Guessing Alex’s first question was, what’s in the NIL bank for BB? Wasn’t Burgess supposed to be part of the BB legacy connection, then he bails? Wonder how the previous Ute BB players think about him jumping ship, although hard not to blame him.

[Holladay Ute]

Craig Smith was a nice guy and had his strengths. At the end of the day, it just didn’t translate to winning here.
And that’s a shame if what JG said is true (i.e. that Smith was ignoring or resisting help from alumni like Andre Miller).

Anyway, the JG interview was very insightful and got me excited about where we can potentially go from here. That said, it’s just one perspective. I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to assume that Alex Jensen is already the guy. I will be thrilled if it is. And I think he should be the #1 option. But I’m not going to assume he’s the coach until they make an announcement.

[utefansince79]

Alex Jensen and Andre Miller are among my all time top men to wear the red and white. Individuals of impressive playing ability and great character. Would be thrilled to see one or both of them on the bench coaching and developing our team.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Novel thought utesfan. Players that actually know how to play as a team. Miller and Jensen were two of the best team players. We may never get the best players but we can play smart team BB. Turnovers and poor foul shooting are team stats that reflect bad coaching.

[hbUte]

Very surprised to hear in Checketts Josh Grant interview that Andre Miller tried to come back to Utah to be an assistant but was never accepted back. I assume from this take this was another example of Smith not wanting to accept any help from anybody who had been associated with Utah BB.

Andre is a head coach in the G league. I would think the next progression for him would be as an NBA assistant coach but it would be fantastic if he were to come back. Having Jensen as head with Andre being the lead assistant would be a dream come true.

[USS Utah]

In light of it being the first season in a supposedly tougher conference (is UA not as good this year, or is the Big 12 tougher than the Pac-12?), with the weird alternate home and away scheduling, and trips out to the eastern time zone, I might have been inclined to give Smith another year. But 1-9 on the road, bad FT shooting and too many turnovers and frequent sloppy play, I agree with ripping off the band aid and moving on.

It’s not like Utah basketball fans are expecting national championships every season (as one person suggested on X). But we do remember when we made the NCAA Tournament most seasons, usually getting at least to the 2nd round, and that informs our expectations. No NCAA bids in 9 seasons is just not acceptable.

[EagleMountainUte]

Doesn’t really move a needle for me. Unfortunately Harlan will be responsible to hire the next coach so most likely more of the same.

I thought he had a tough sell considering Men’s Basketball actually won big 12 games. Something none of us were expecting. Ultimately you are losing off the court to Poo Poo though so something needed to be done.
Smith had some ranked home wins but so did Poo Poo. Then you just show the trajectory really hadn’t changed. Looking at the Stat sheet you can see the coaching problems. Free throws being the obvious one.

Be nice to see Runnin Utes basketball again.

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