MBB Roll Call

[Tony (admin)]

Anyone headed up to the game tonight?  Utes vs the north-eastern sisters of the poor and shameless, er… I mean Abilene Christian. 

[Staples]

I’ll be there. I always enjoy the start of basketball season even if it lately has just led to inevitable pain and despair down the road.

[dystopiamembrane]

Let’s hope we beat the north-eastern sisters of the poor and shameless, eh? Massey sees us with a 14-point win, but that seems a slim margin against your assumed quality of opponent.

[utefansince79]

ACU (as a 14 seed) beat Texas (3 seed) last year in the tourney and brings back 3 starters.   That would rate them significantly above “mostly harmless”.

 

 

 

[dystopiamembrane]

Abilene Christian were 24-5 last year, knocking off 3-seed Texas in the 1st round.

[chinngiskhaan]

My mbb interest is at an all time low right now and getting lower. Who the heck are we cheering for? Riley 2 inch vert battin? Carlson, who says he’s going to gain weight then comes back rail thin again? Carlson is this teams highest ceiling player, and he is deeply flawed. 

mbb as a whole is just a plain old terrible product that is only getting worse. There is zero reason beyond loyalty to care about this team in any way.

thr team is completely bereft of current talent, and lacks any sort of positive momentum for the future. No Colin Chandler = no s**ts given from me.

Smith had one job to do this off-season. Get the huge Utah fan to commit to the school he loves. Smith (according to reports) failed to do so. We may as well fire him now. This program is going nowhere… or don’t fire him ever, I don’t care.

[dystopiamembrane]

We are cheering for athletes from the University of Utah.

[SOWhat]

How can you say they are getting worse when they haven’t played a regular season game yet.
You and your negative vibes.

[dwainegf]

I’ll be there pulling for my team regardless to their so called lack of talent. I believe we will surprise people and that our new coach will bring back some of the positive results we’ve enjoyed in the past.

[chinngiskhaan]

It’s not a “so called” lack of talent. It’s an actual lack of real world basketball talent relative to the talent of other teams in our league. We had several 4* players either committed or on the roster before the start of last year, plus Carlson who upon arriving from his mission played with exceptionally high energy and toughness. The future was very bright. Then one of the recruits bailed on us before the season, one never showed up, two left when their dads got fired along with the head coach, and Carlson lost any desire to play physically in any way shape or form, and failed to deliver on promises to gain weight and muscle. Oh yeah… Remember Timmy Allen? Our only player that came even close to sniffing pac12 honors last year? Yeah, he’s gone too.

We don’t have a single player or incoming commit that has a snowball’s chance in hell of making an NBA roster.

We have one guy on this team that would maybe possibly have a small chance at starting on any other Pac12 team. That player is Carlson, because he is tall, and can block shots (sometimes a lot of them). However, that player is also severely flawed. He has inexplicably lost all ability and/or desire to play in the post on offense. He is somehow a worse rebounder than Riley Battin (who as I alluded to previously can hardly jump at all), and isn’t good enough from beyond the arc to really justify standing out there as much as he does. Is he creating spacing by standing out there? If so, for who? Do we have anyone capable of hitting open threes consistently? I strongly doubt it! Do we have anyone that can get to the hole/free throw line reliably? NOPE, those two guys left after last year.

Yes this team has little to no talent. No they will not be good. Yes they might play disciplined basketball and win some games with good defense. No we do not have anyone coming to the program in the near future that will change this narrative in any way that means anything.

No, it will not at any point be fun to watch because it is COLLEGE BASKETBALL, which was ruined years ago by players leaving early to go to the NBA, and made even worse with the emphasis on freedom of movement. College basketball has been reduced to a contest between who can get the most charging calls, and who can make the most free throws.

[chinngiskhaan]

I could be wrong. I’ve been known to be wrong before, and if I am, I’ll admit it. Heck, I’ll probably tune in for at least a half because as much as I apparently like to whine, I still want to hope that this team isn’t going to be boring. We’ll see I guess.

[beaslad]

You’re not wrong at all. I said 5 or 6 years ago that this program was broken beyond repair and no one believed me. But here we are.

[chinngiskhaan]

5-6 years ago we had plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the program. I believe we had Kuzma back then, plus a few other guys. our coach knew how to get guys to commit… but his inability to keep a group of guys together for more than a year resulted in a tremendous amount of instability, and his ultimate firing. Meanwhile several programs that were struggling in the Pac12 have now rebounded and are challenging Oregon. We are definitely one of the 2 or 3 worst teams in the Pac12.

[CincyUte]

Six years ago, this team won 27 games, played in the Pac-12 championship and went to the NCAAs.

[chinngiskhaan]

Also, in case you think I’m forgetting Gach, I’m not. I just really really really don’t think he’s going to play this year. Even if he does, don’t forget that he is likely the same player he was when he was here. Super inconsistent, a walking turnover, a player with immense defensive potential that somehow finds a way to be a bad defender.

[chinngiskhaan]

Thus far, Gach is the best recruiting job that Smith has done, and Gach is NOT going to make this team significantly better whether he plays or not.

[UteBacker]

I agree with both of you, beaslad & chinngikhann.  I’m dealing with it by having ZERO expectations for the next couple of years, but totally giving Coach Smith the chance to build a winner.  I really think he’s going to do awesome in the long run but he’s going to need some time.

[Tony (admin)]

I’ve been going to bball for decades. It’s a tradition at this point. 

[utefansince79]

I too have been going to Ute hoops and football for over 40 years.  With both sports I’ve seen seasons where we struggle as well as great seasons.   Bad years will never keep me away.

 

Until I die!

 

 

[chinngiskhaan]

Collin Chandler is the easiest chance he’ll ever get at an elite recruit. Maybe the easiest chance the UofU has EVER had at a player of his caliber, indeed he would have been the best to commit ever had Smith done his job well enough.

If Smith can’t get Chandler to commit, he won’t be able to get anyone else even approaching his talent to commit.

There is a possibility that there is another huge utah fan out there who is also an elite basketball player. There is also a possibility that after seeing Smith’s team in action that player gains a bit of respect for our program. It is POSSIBLE for Smith to fix this mess… but highly unlikely. 

If Smith was recruiting the Delon Wrights and Jakob Poeltl’s of the world I might have some hope about the future of the program. Those guys were unheralded recruits, but we had reason to believe they had a ton of potential. One had a giant frame, soft hands, tremendous athletic ability, and zero bad habits due to a lack of experience. The other had NBA level instincts, size, and athleticism. He also had a brother who was a successful NBA player. He just hadn’t grown up yet, and was a terrible shooter.

Who do we have on this roster, or who are we recruiting that is a diamond in the rough (or an already elite prospect. No, Chandler does not count, he’s not coming to Utah)? WHO?? We Utah State recruits that followed Smith to the UofU. We have guys who would have left Utah when K left if anyone wanted them, some of them even tried to leave but came back. We have a guy who DID leave only to realize he wasn’t good enough to play on a decent team, so he came back as well. We have one or two guys that came here because they didn’t get playing time at the mediocre schools they were at before. We have guys who were recruited to keep the bench seats warm. Carlson HAD nba potential, but for whatever reason has not prioritized his life in a way that would make realizing that potential a possibility (which is fine, the NBA isn’t for everyone obviously). 

At this point, the only way Smith has any shot at making this program respectable again is by focusing on recruiting raw, athletic players, and developing their skills. LUCKY for us, I think Smith MIGHT actually be capable of doing this. He showed that he could help guys like Queta improve. Unfortunately, right now we don’t have raw, athletic players. We have Carlson and a bunch of Rollie Worster types who long ago maximized their basketball potential.

If/when I see Smith getting players with raw athletic ability to commit, I will start to believe in this team again.

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