[Holladay Ute]

I don’t blame anybody for giving up their tickets. Last year was brutal. And it’s obviously really expensive.

Somebody else is in line to take your place though. They still have a lot of goodwill built up within the fan base. And we’ll probably have a pretty good team in 2025. And it’s not like we were getting blown out in 2024. As painful as it was to watch our offense, these were still close games that often could’ve gone either way in the 4th quarter. Losing most of your games isn’t fun (especially at home), but watching competitive football is still fun. I’ve had season tickets for 15 years at RES. Am I going to give them up b/c we had one tough year where we lost a bunch of close games w/ our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th string QBs? No way. We were a few plays away from another season of unforgettable memories at RES.

It’s Harlan’s job to generate as much revenue as he can. The more revenue, the better off our program will be. They’re doing what they should be doing. I’d love lower prices too, but it is what it is.

[Holladay Ute]

I wouldn’t want them to replace the Huntsman Center unless they were doing something really cool and if it was close to RES (downtown would be a really bad idea, in my opinion).

Consistently winning will get people back to the games. RES isn’t downtown and they’ve sold out for 15 years. Why? Because we’ve been good. The U is investing in student housing on campus, right? Hopefully that means more students at the basketball games if/when we’re good again.

There’s so much history at the Huntsman Center. Magic versus Bird. The Majerus days. It’s an iconic venue and loud if we’re a good team and the fans show up. Think of the BYU games the last two years. Bill Self said it was a great atmosphere at the Kansas game last night. I went to a gymnastics meet the other day and it was way fun. Not sold out, but it was definitely very crowded and the fans were passionate. Lower bowl probably all sold out and then a good chunk of the upper bowl too.

Don’t make a new stadium just so it has less seats and makes us feel better about no empty seats at the basketball games. Invest the resources into the players and coaching staff so we can fill the seats again. Schools will be paying players directly pretty soon anyway.

[Holladay Ute]

It’s not surprising and I think that’s b/c of what we have on the roster: too many decent or good players but no great players. And it doesn’t feel like anybody on the roster has really separated themselves from the pack to clearly claim the consistent lions share of the minutes. On a given night, Ausar has a great game and then he follows it up w/ a dud. It feels like that’s been the case for a number of players (Mike, Lovering, etc.). Dawes and Mason Madsen feel like they’ve been more consistent, but even they have had too many games where they just didn’t impact the game at all. Gabe has obviously been super streaky (and has basically been in a slump ever since conference play…hopefully the Colorado game broke the slump). I think this is just a function of the roster construction. I’m assuming the coaching staff hoped that by now we would have the cream rise to the top. Hasn’t really happened in a consistent way.

[Holladay Ute]

The current state of the basketball program doesn’t feel great and so I understand the criticisms.

That said, I agree w/ Kellso. It’s hard to be disappointed w/ a 5-6 conference record (and a win over TDS) in what is one of the best conferences in the country, if not the best, during our first year transitioning in and after we lost our two best players from last year.

Let’s see how the rest of the season goes. Craig deserves at least that. And then let’s talk.

The biggest frustration (and maybe why most people feel like Craig isn’t the guy for us) is what happened before this season. Last year’s team absolutely should have made it into March Madness at a minimum. It was a total coaching failure. Brandon Carlson, Deivon Smith, and Gabe Madsen (w/ a few decent role players behind them) absolutely should have been enough to receive a spot in the tournament.

[Holladay Ute]

Spot on. We really needed a couple more of those road games against beatable opponents. And that’s really the difference between us and TDS.

Even in the unlikely scenario we finish 3-2 AND make it to the quarterfinals of the B12 tournament, I think we’d be on the bubble but I don’t think we’d make it in. We’d be 19-14 at that point w/ a weak non-conference showing and we wouldn’t be considered a hot team at the end of the season either. The B12 got 8 teams in last year and then underperformed (pretty meaningfully). Year before that, they had 7 teams in and also underperformed. And I don’t know if this is a valid statement, but it doesn’t feel like the B12 is as good of a conference this year as it’s been in recent years. I think Utah needs to make it to the semifinals of the B12 tournament to earn a spot. And this won’t happen.

Then again, I also thought we’d get blown out by Kansas. Maybe we’re hitting our stride at the right time. I still think it’s unlikely we’ll beat UCF on the road, but winning that game would be a nice step toward earning consideration as a bubble team!

[Holladay Ute]

This is a good point and I agree w/ it. Although, none of those players transferred until after Coach K was fired. It’s too bad Coach Smith couldn’t convince any of them to stick around. Maybe we could’ve had a year or two of the best of both worlds (good recruiting + decent coaching).

[Holladay Ute]

Well, I’ve been a season ticket holder for 15 years (including the last year or two of Boylen) so I think I lived the whole experience and then some. I grew up going to the Majerus games w/ my dad. The best coach we’ve had since Majerus was Coach K.

I agree, we were underperforming w/ good talent, it felt like Coach K was possibly checked out, guys were transferring out every year, and we were on a clear decline. Firing him definitely felt like the right move at the time. I know we have the benefit of hindsight at this point, but based on what Coach Smith has done I don’t feel like it would’ve hurt us to give Coach K another season w/ what was a better overall roster of talent than anything Coach Smith has produced. Stefanovic was decent for Utah. I’m not saying he was a great talent, but he would’ve been a good guy off the bench to support all the other clearly great college players that Coach K had on the outgoing roster.

[Holladay Ute]

Great point on Kuzma. It’s also a shame that w/ three legit NBA players (Wright, Poetl, and Kuzma), we only got one Sweet 16 appearance. Obviously grateful for that one year, but it seems like we had the talent to potentially go deeper than we did. Unfortunately, we ran into the eventual champs that year!

I like Craig Smith and I think he’s fine. We’ve gotten better every year since he’s been here. And jumping into what is arguably the best conference in the country, we have a 4-5 conference record and have not played an easy schedule. If we can finish in the middle of the conference, I would think he earns another year and I’d be fine to see where that goes for one more year. That said, even though last year was an improvement and technically on a positive trajectory, it’s clear we massively underperformed relative to the quality of team we had. And it’s clear that our team this year is nowhere close to where we’d all like to be (at least somewhat competitive w/ the upper tier teams in the conference).

[Holladay Ute]

Good points. To me, it feels like we have too many guys who deserve 20 minutes per game and not enough guys who deserve 30 minutes per game. The best teams in our conference (and in the country) seem to have 3-4 guys that clearly carry the load and where the team is built around them. We have Gabe and Gabe is great, but he seemed to thrive as the #2-3 option, not as the #1 option. For us, we have a lot of good players but I don’t know if we have many (if any) great players. And I think that’s why we get blown out by the great teams in our league and stay competitive w/ everyone else.

I like Dawes and, like you said, I think he deserves more minutes. At the same time, is he a guy capable of taking over a game? Maybe, but it’s not clear to me. This could be poor analysis on my part, but I feel like he is a player that needs his teammates to help him create offense. When he scores, I feel like he’s cutting or rolling (or maybe getting an offensive rebound). I don’t feel like I’ve seen him create offense on his own (that often)? Can he post somebody up down low? Can he drive to the basket w/ the ball? Maybe, but I feel like we haven’t seen it often (if ever)? The nice thing about Ausar is that he can clearly create offense on his own and force defenses to hone in on him. I’m not sure we get that w/ Dawes? Maybe the coaching staff just hasn’t put him in those positions, like you said.

As it relates to Craig Smith, it’s just so clear that last year was a big failure. We had multiple great players. Branden Carlson looks like he deserves a spot on an NBA roster (and might earn that on the best team in the league). Deivon Smith is one of the better players on one of the best college teams in the country. And then Gabe. This trio of players should have made it into March Madness. And they should have contended for the conference title in a softer power conference like the Pac-12. We didn’t have as much depth last year as we do this year, but we still had plenty of decent or solid role players (Worster, Bajema, Lovering, and Keita). Last year is still such a big disappointment.

[Holladay Ute]

Here is a summary of all the games that were either losses or against conference opponents:

Cincinnati: Dawes was hot and got the minutes. Ausar didn’t have that bad of a game though. Both of them had 4 turnovers, but Ausar produced an efficient 11 points in the 16 minutes he played.

Baylor: Ausar was hot and got the minutes. He was basically the only reason we were somewhat competitive in that game. Dawes played 19 minutes and was a complete no show.

@ Houston: Dawes played 25 minutes. His stats are decent, but clearly didn’t impact the game enough. Ausar played 21 minutes and was bad. So I could see an argument that Dawes should’ve played 5-10 more minutes than they gave him, but he also had a 3 fouls that game and it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Neither of them was keeping us in the game when they played…

BYU: Obviously no argument here. Ausar basically single-handedly won us this game. He deserved every minute he got over Dawes. Dawes’ stats were okay, but he was more pedestrian when he played.

@ TCU: Dawes played more minutes and had a great game. Ausar wasn’t bad in the limited minutes he played. We won so it’s hard to criticize how coach allocated the minutes.

OK State: Dawes played slightly more minutes. Both of them had a great game. We won.

@ Iowa State: Tough game for Ausar. Dawes only played 2 minutes.

Texas Tech: Ausar didn’t play. Dawes got 20 minutes and was pretty good (but we still got blown out, just like Houston).

@ Baylor: This looks like Dawes should’ve gotten more minutes than Ausar. Fair criticism here.

Iowa: Ausar played 10 minutes. Dawes didn’t play at all.

Saint Mary’s: Dawes played 3 minutes. Ausar played 17 minutes. Fair criticism here too.

Mississippi State: Dawes had a great game, but he fouled out.

So what do I see? I see 4 games this season where I am confused about Dawes’ minutes: @ Iowa State, @ Baylor, Iowa, and Saint Mary’s. In three of these games, Dawes either didn’t play or he got low single-digit minutes. There has to be something to that. All of those games were kind of in the same stretch of the season. Basically, Smith didn’t play Dawes much during the whole month of December. Was he injured or sick? Maybe he was practicing poorly or there was some sort of discipline needed? Dawes got plenty of minutes in November and he’s been getting plenty of minutes in January. December is the month where you scratch your head a little bit, but Ausar’s minutes dipped meaningfully in December too. Maybe you chalk it up to Smith trying to figure out his team (which would be unfortunate)?

Anyway, I still feel like it depends on who has the hot hand w/ these two players. I think they both deserve good minutes…and if one of them is having a good night, keep feeding them…if they aren’t, stick them on the bench. Dawes seems a little more consistent generally, but still disappears more often than just having an “off game” (he was not much of a factor for several games in a row after TCU and before Cincinnati).

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