Staples

A solid team. Wins over Stanford and Oregon, NET ranking in the 130s.

Ha ha, I was having the same issue at work, that’s why I finally just typed out the statement rather than posting a link.

Basketball Reference has the advanced stats for a few years back at least. Exacte last year had a BPM of -2.1 (OBPM -2.7, DBPM 0.6). Erickson so far this year is also at -2.1 (OBPM -2.1, DBPM 0.0.) Pretty even LOL

Haven’t heard anything, but I wouldn’t hate it.

I agree that Hunter has been serviceable at times, but most of the advanced metrics have him among the worst on the team. WS/40, Box Plus/Minus, etc. he’s 9th on the team if you remove Brandon Haddock from the rankings (because he’s apparently done really well in his 2 garbage time appearances.) It’s mostly because of an incredibly high turnover…[Read more]

Honestly I thought the refs were fairly decent for the most part….other than a couple of those fouls on 3 pointers. That last one on Keita was horrible, Khalifa was already falling down before there was anything resembling contact. The one towards the end that Robinson made (and missed the free-throw, ball don’t lie) was also questionable.…[Read more]

Worster has proven to be a solid point guard. Not elite, and his shooting leaves much to be desired, but his toughness is huge for this team. Erickson on the other hand is not a point guard. He’s much more of a combo guard who can run the point on occasion but that shouldn’t be his role. Unfortunately the seeming perfect compliment to Rollie…[Read more]

I think Erickson playing as much as he did down the stretch was a combination of foul trouble with Bajema and defense. I haven’t watched enough of BYU this year to know if they typically post their guards, but they started doing that with Hall and Johnson since we were running them off the three point line. Erickson and Worster both did an…[Read more]

It was certainly an interesting game. Scored 88 points yet felt like we left a lot out there, we missed a TON of shots at the rim, basically everyone not named Keba Keita. Defensively we didn’t play well, SUU wasn’t supposed to be a good shooting team and they lit us up. Yes there was some luck (4 banked-in threes) but they got a lot of good…[Read more]

Agreed, the waiver process is completely broken and it’s not fair to the players or the teams. If they can’t make a ruling by the time the season starts, the kid should be eligible.

Smith also made some excellent adjustments at half-time, particularly on defense. Wake Forest torched us in the first half so he switched things up and went with a variety of zone looks. Completely took Wake out of their offensive flow. They still hit some shots but nothing was coming easy.

Sadly it was before my time. I always thought it would be cool for the Utes to play a throwback game in there once a year, but that’s not even possible now with its most recent renovations. It really wasn’t possible before, but at least when it was still a rec center one could dream.

As a season ticket holder who goes to every single game, I don’t really have a good answer for why more don’t show up. If you’re looking for an excuse to not attend a game, I guess it’s pretty easy to find one. Parking isn’t great, though between Trax and the shuttle service they started last year, it’s not too bad getting to the game.…[Read more]

That’s really the catch-22 of the whole thing. Fans stay away because they only want to support a “winner”, yet recruiting invariably has to suffer when you bring a recruit in for a visit and there’s 2000 fans in the arena. Say what you will about BYU, but they have a great gameday environment down there in Provo, in a close recruiting battle I…[Read more]

I was also at the game last night and overall I was impressed. We have a lot more meaningful depth, really nice 4 man rotation at the 4/5 with the Carlson boys, Lovering, and Keita. Andrew Crowley on the Runnin’ Hoops podcast compared Ben Carlson to Trace Caton, and if game 1 is any indication, it’s a good comp. Does the dirty work, will hit…[Read more]

I’ll be there! E. Washington was a very good team last year, they did lose their best player to Gonzaga, but hopefully that means it will be a good game with a Utah victory.

I was just referring to his free-throw shooting. Like I said, his form actually looks decent so I wasn’t sure if he was just off, or if he typically struggled from the line. But overall I was impressed with him, showed some flashes of athleticism and seemed to have pretty good hands. He and Carlson are going to cause some problems for teams…[Read more]

Looks like we have some shooters. Bajema and Erickson really shot it well, the Carlson boys both hit one, even Lovering hit one early in the game. Only guy that struggled was Gabe Madsen, and we know he can fill it up when he’s hot. Also, the addition of Lovering means we have some legit size with him and Branden starting at the 4/5. There…[Read more]

I also was one of the few that were there (like Uecker, I was in the front row) and I agree, there are pieces there for a good team. Erickson looks like he can be a scrappy role player that can shoot it some. He also looks like he could have been the third Reid brother, how did BYU let him leave?! One downside – team free-throw shooting. For…[Read more]