Worst Loss of the Smith Era

[The Miami Ute]

Playing at home against a bad team (who was coming off losses at home to both Cal and Stanford and on a five game losing streak), in a game that you desperately needed to have to remain within touching distance of a tournament berth, and you lay an egg. Just frustrating. Hard to see how Utah picks up enough wins in the remaining seven games, five of which are away, to make it to the Dance. I guess that they can always win the PAC tournament but I have a better chance of hitting Powerball numbers than that happening.

[beaslad]

Easily. Utah was an 11.5 point favorite and ESPN predicter gave ASU 12 percent chance to win. lol. I’ve been saying it for 20 years: Utah basketball is broken beyond repair. Do we even win a game next year in the B12? Spoiler alert – we don’t.

[AZUTE]

Harlan went rouge and hired his guy(Smith)when he could’ve had Alex Jensen or Jonnie Bryant both whom would have been better.

A week ago Utah was all but guaranteed an ncaa tournament bid. A week later it’s all but gone.

Another year of Smith only prolongs the program’s downfall

[homer]

Alex said no.

[AZUTE]

He was all but hired to be Utah’s next head Coach when Harlan and another big money donor went in another direction.

The contract was drawn up and just needed to be signed. Alex was in a very solid position with the Utah Jazz at the time and was considered an up and coming HC candidate in the NBA.

i.e. The timing wasn’t great but make no mistake Alex was the first choice.

Those considerations have cooled a bit and Asst Coach in Dallas is not his ideal.

He’d be very attainable right now if Harlan fired Smith tomorrow.

Along with Jonnie Bryant who openly campaigned for the job.

[The Miami Ute]

I’m originally from Miami, and just north of Miami off I-95 there’s a school called Florida Atlantic University (FAU). FAU is a commuter school in an urban environment with no fanbase, a high school gym for an arena and low academic standing. They’re easily the 7th or 8th best school (maybe) in the state of Florida. Yet FAU made it to the Final Four last year and are highly ranked again this year. Their coach, Dusty May, makes $1.25M a year. Pull the plug on the failed Craig Smith experiment and go get Dusty May.

[chinngiskhaan]

If the team doesn’t bounce back in a major way Smith needs to go. Any recruiting momentum we could have had from beating TSPP is gone and we have nothing to look forward to next year.

[The Miami Ute]

Here’s a plausible scenario. Utah has three consecutive road games until they come back to the Huntsman to play Stanford. Those games are at USC, UCLA, and Colorado, all places where Utah has not fared well historically in the best of times. If the Utes go 0-3 on that road trip, they will be 10th in the PAC 12 conference standings with four games left, two of which are likely losses during an Oregon road trip. No matter what happens, I doubt that Smith gets fired for the simple reason that he’s Harlan’s handpicked coach and canning him so soon would reflect badly on Harlan. That being said, if Harlan effed up that hire, does anyone really trust him to select the right guy on the next go round?

[PAC12Teams]

Andre Miller should be the next coach with Chris Burgess on staff. Slocum can sell the Utah program.

Hell Kerry Rupp couldn’t do any worse.

[EagleMountainUte]

I was seriously holding my breath I was like did Smith right this thing? Then the blessing with court case against the NCAA allowing Deivon Smith…I exhaled a bit and thought why not now?? But you can see in his rotations, you can see it in his subs, then you see the missed free throws making games close. The fear at times to go inside….
Craig Smith isn’t the answer. They should fire him after he most likely goes 0-3 after this road trip.

[Author]

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