Aggie-Utes

[PAC12Teams]

Another guard tranfer from Utah State.  6’5 – 10pts – 34% 3pt line – 62% FT

Marco Anthony

[OldAsDirtUte]

Is Smith recruiting these guys, or are they calling him first?

[Tony (admin)]

We might have a shot at the MWC championship!

[Utah5410]

Very simple what Coach Smith is doing. I think it’s Genius. Bring in your guys and establish your culture. Guys that know you, trust you, that will teach the old coach K guys the new way. Once all buy in and the culture has been established we will start attacking the 4 star kids that will fit this culture. It’s how Gonzaga built up to what they are today. I love it. I get the guys he’s bringing in are not “Pac-12 guys” But K brought those guys in every year. And they either unperformed or left agter 1 year. If the culture is wrong and safe, too guys will see that and come in droves.

[fosternano]

I’m just happy he’s bringing in some solid recruits. If y’all remember coach K’s first season and that “team” he had. Not exactly a memorable season….

[Ute Dub]

Yes. The recruiting cycle just ended in February, right? The only thing available to Smith is the portal, which is significant this year. He needs to land the Big from Baylor now, or another quality big. 

[TxUte]

How many guards do we need?

[UtahFanSir]

At least 12, maybe 13 plus a few walk ons. 

[AZUTE]

Might as well go full circle and change our to the runnin’ aggies.

Smith is just bringing Coaches Players and Administrative people with him to Utah.

Is he just lazy or is it the fact he can’t do better?

Allen to Texas
Martinez to Maryland
Plummber to Illinois
Jantunen goes pro
All P5 players going to P5 or better teams

Smith is recruiting a bunch of G5 scrubs to a P5 team.

You can’t trade P5 talent for G5 talent and expect to win…..but hey at least we’ll have great team camaraderie.

Utes won’t win 10 games next year with the team Smith is assembling.

[AZUteFan]

Uh, half of the teams in the Final Four were G5. On top of that, Utah St has had a better team than Utah over the past 3-4 years (maybe not overall talent, but better team).

I’ll take the players that have actually played in the NCAA tournament over LK’s guys that struggled to go .500 and got beat by 20 in Provo.

[CincyUte]

You mentioned Provo.  What’s Craig Smith’s record against BYU?

[AZUteFan]

I honestly don’t know, but whatever it was it was good enough to qualify for the big dance every year he was at Utah St. 

[AZUTE]

What is smith’s record in the big dance while at USU?

Qualifying for the big dance in the MWC isn’t as big of a deal as you think it is.

[AZUteFan]

Another good question! I don’t know the answer to that, but I did watch Utah St play Texas Tech in the 1st round this year and I saw a well coached team that played tough defense, great rebounding, and a passion I haven’t seen from a Utah team in several years.

Please explain how qualifying for the big dance in the MWC isn’t a big deal? Ha ha. As opposed to hoping for LK to take us on another one of those special NIT 2nd place finishes? Yeah, that was a really big deal! 

[Central Coast Ute]

For a minute I thought these AZ Ute guys were the same person talking to themselves

[D T]

I’m super high on MA….Kid can flat out play D….Big, athletic G who won a NC w/UVA.

[Utah5410]

AZUTE are you being serious right now ? I can’t tell if you’re joking. The guys that left were gone anyway. You think they were going to stick around for K again ? I could care less what great recruits K brought in every year. They either didn’t develop at all or transferred out. If you read my post give him a year. I Guarantee he’ll get some dogs next year. This year it’s about culture. Oh and all that talent hasn’t gotten us to the tournament in 5 years. Smith has been there the last 3. And no he hasn’t won any games. He does need talent to win the tournament. But we won’t get talent unless we establish a culture and win some games.

[FountainofUte]

Agreed. I think (read: hope) we’ll be fine. But yes, it’s waaaaay too soon to be frustrated or bummed about the kinds of guys CS is losing vs bringing in. Like was said above, it looks like we were going to lose Mikki, Timmy, and Plummer no matter what. And the second we changed coaches Ian was likely out the door. I’m actually stoked that we still have Jones and that we pulled Battin back in. Next year IS about culture and stability. That’s what we’ll get by having some of Smith’s kids come here and bringing back guys like Battin and Thioune.

No, next year likely won’t be a sexy year. But let’s see what CS can do once he gets a full recruiting cycle in. I liked LK, and I even liked the talent we had that has now walked out the door. But even I could see that the program had stagnated and it was almost certain that even this talented group of players was going to leave or underachieve.

Now we’re going through the painful process of the reboot/rebuild. It sucks because we truly did have talent here. But it wasn’t going to produce the fruit that it should have.

Here’s to better days. Go Utes.