[Minnesota Ute]

I did that once in my career, wasn’t quite double but it was nearly a 70% increase, and within one year I was on the cusp of cracking 6 figures. I wasn’t even 30 years old yet, so it was pretty exciting. But after 18 months, I left to return to my prior company for a different, not nearly as good of a position for a 20% pay cut because I was f’ing miserable. Yes, I ended up better at my old company than when I left salary-wise, but it’s hard to say what would have happened had I stayed because I was never again as happy as I was before I left. Also there were opportunities that I missed out on because even after I returned to the company, I was no longer in the same line of progression. Moral of the story, at least for me, is the money was not worth the misery.

[Minnesota Ute]

Yeah that was hard to watch, but I agree with those that say that Houston is very good so not to read too much into last night. That said… Hofstra and Jackson State outscored us against Houston. They did beat TCU and OSU pretty handily too, but not nearly as bad as we got embarrassed.

My biggest issue with Craig, besides recruiting, is the constant subbing. I think against a super athletic aggressive team like Houston, it’s a mistake to think that fresh legs are the antidote. You are far better off, IMO, letting the players on the floor try to get acclimated to what Houston is doing and try, as much as possible, to slow down the pace and take care of the ball. It would be very interesting to see how many of each guy’s turnovers came one or two possessions into them coming off the bench. I observed, anecdotally, 4 or 5 times where someone came off the bench and immediately threw it away or had it swiped, but as much as he subs and as many turnovers as we had, it was probably a lot more and may be correlation not causation.

Interesting side note, but related, turnovers were incredibly balanced. Nobody had more than 4 and nobody had less than 2, other than Jake, Mason, & Keller that had no turnovers. Surprised Jake had none given his minutes, but mason and keller played limited and mostly garbage minutes against houston’s bench so not a huge surprise there.

Other interesting stats, Jake & Keanu are the only ones with significant GameScores (4.2 and 5.6 respectively), they plus Mason are also the only ones with good BPM (10.2, 9.2, 10.3 respectively). I’m not sure how much this says about Mason, but I think it continues to reinforce my feelings on Jake and Keanu.

While it was a bad game all the way around, I think Jake & Keanu continue to show why they should be playing. I don’t think you can get away from Lawson as he is our size, but not surprising that he was dominated by Houston. Mike was terrible, but then again, so were all our guards, and he only saw 11 minutes carved up among a handful of stretches so I refuse to read too much into his performance. Miro did nothing to prove he deserves minutes instead, beyond a couple of 3s, his defense was god awful. Similarly, Ezra, despite the big game against BYU isn’t really showing me anything in the 3 or 4 spot that Keanu and Jake don’t have covered better. Gabe continues to be our best option at guard even though he is so inconsistent from 3. Beyond him, I think you have Mike then Mason, and I don’t really see why Hunter or Miro should get much for minutes other than very situational.

Bottom line, to me is still: Gabe, Mike, Jake, Keanu, Lawson;
Bench Guards: Mason, Miro, then Hunter;
Bench Forward: Ezra, Caleb, Keller;
Keep this rotation so tight that Mason/Ezra get <10min; Miro/Caleb gets little/situational min and Hunter/Keller are desperation foul trouble.

Of course, this deep in the season, in many ways the die is already cast.

[Minnesota Ute]

Ug ok whalin not ezra. But regardless I think its way too much subbing

[Minnesota Ute]

I get it, they are good but jeez Craig. Put your best players on the floor and let them try to work.

I want lawson, keanu, ezra, gabe and mike. Period

[Minnesota Ute]

The interesting part of the story is that I had to make the decision on a Monday. On the Saturday night before, the wife and I did an analysis of Stay vs Go. We wrote in the margin everything we could think of, house, neighborhood, job, church, friends, town, money, etc. etc. We ranked them all 1-10, and at the end of the list when we totaled them up, Go had 10 points and it was all $$$. The next morning in church I was sitting in the pew praying on it, and when I opened the program the sermon was titled “Be Careful What You Abandon”. I remember nudging my wife and pointing to the program, and we both kind of chuckled at the “coincidence”.

To this day, I wish I had saved that list and that program. I also always think of that experience in terms of the story of Pharoh and the lord “hardening his heart”. That was always a hang up of mine when I was a kid, why would he do that? He could soften it just as easy and let them all go. But sometimes you just have to learn the hard way or the lesson doesn’t stick…

[Minnesota Ute]

Yeah, we are firmly middle of the pack. I think the only question is whether we are bottom middle or middle-middle. We clearly don’t have the horses to be at the top of the conference even if RM was at the helm. I honestly think we could be top middle if Craig was a good coach. We could be in the mix with Baylor and West Virginia with the right coach. But with Craig and this team, our ceiling is probably 8th, but I’m hoping our floor is 13th.

[Minnesota Ute]

Absolutely, also if you have the patience and/or skill to resync often, I like to rewind and watch any of the TV filler content during the commercials on a timeout. Then I can always catch up and resync when the game is back on. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds because the TV usually has some interesting special interest stuff on past players, past games, conference standings, etc.

I’m always happy to bring more listeners to Bill Reilly and ESPN700, it’s a real blessing to have an interesting & passionate play by play like Bill (or Paul Allen for Vikings). They are so much more invested in the team you are watching than the random TV guys that get assigned. Bill Walton was the worst. One time I literally watched with no sound at all because I couldn’t get the radio feed and he was on the broadcast.

[Minnesota Ute]

Just an FYI though for anyone attempting this maneuver, it doesn’t happen often, probably only happened to me a handful of times that I can recall, but if the radio is ahead of the TV you are screwed. That is the kiss of death because there is no way that I found to pause the radio (I didn’t try purchasing a radio app like iHeart). I didn’t document it, but I believe that it was a problem that was very specific to a certain channel that aired Ute games very occasionally, like FS1 or something, where they had an excessive TV delay.

[Minnesota Ute]

Dang, I think I just hit on an idea, the more games you attend, you get preference points that allow you to buy better seats for less money, or opportunities for upgrades maybe… I’m not sure how exactly that might work, but reward folks for being there seems like a good idea.

Maybe Season Ticket Holders could get some sort of tiered discount based on the number of times their ticket was used?

Just thinking of things that would drive people to not just attend one game but a reason to keep coming back too. (Besides winning, which of course we all want, but so does ever other program.)

[Minnesota Ute]

If you’ve ever been bumped up to first class, undoubtedly you were sitting among some folks that paid for that privilege. Strangely, everyone still seems happy 😛

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