This team was skilled, and well coached. But the flaws were just too much

[rbmw263]

to overcome and were always going to end our season prematurely.

• Turnovers
• Guard/Wing defense. Too big of a quickness/length deficit on the wings. Love em to death, but Taylor and Loveridge just cannot stay with bigger/quicker guys on the outside. Almost all the guys they face are either bigger (taylor) or quicker (love). And our third wing defender (bonam) might be the worst defender in D1. Seriously. He is so bad. All 3 wings last night, and in our losses, could beat their man off the dribble with ease.
• Wing playmaking. Nobody, outside of Bonam, on the team could get past their man and force the help defense, which is step number one to getting buckets. Its reason number one we struggled so much with Jakob out. If you cant beat your man off the dribble you are going to have a very tough time finding open looks consistently. Rely too much on screens with players who are limited (Taylor is not a threat to come around a pick, get into the lane and score) or Reyes (dont think I need to explain). Who on this team could make a play that wasnt handed to them by the attention given to Poeltl? Bonam. Thats it. That is a HUGE issue.
• Turnovers
• Lack of overall athleticisim, especially on the wings
• Turnovers
• The thing about the turnovers, is they almost always seemed to be the live ball near the 3 point line variety, the kind that lead to fast break layups and cost you about 2 points per. KILLER TOs

 

You can see a theme here. If its not TOs, our problems almost all come on the wings. We need a big time physical upgrage on the outside. BIG TIME. If we can upgrade our athleticism/quickness/length on the outside, to pair with Johnson/Chapman/Kuzma down low. We will be fine next year. Can we get that significant of an upgrade in one year? We’ll find out

• This topic was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by rbmw263.

[rbmw263]

That said, I wouldnt trade the players on this years team for anything. They chose to be Utes, and thats all that matters. Ill always be really appreciative towards Taylor, Loveridge, and Tucker for what they did for the program. All in all, it was a solid season with some great moments and great wins. They didnt quite reach their ceiling, but that doesnt make the year a failure. Thanks for everything boys. Go Utes.

[Anonymous]

We were a good team in a weak Conference. Backcourt, as you noted, was weak. Krystkowiak was out coached by Mark Few yesterday.

[Puget Ute]

We have an outstanding coach and a tremendous coaching staff. The team played to the best of their abilities all season. This season was outstanding, outside of a few crappy losses.

[Author]

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