C. Smith

[Distantute]

How can he keep his job? What could he possibly say to Harlan to make him think things are improving? Same 2nd half slide, horrific recruiting, senior laden team with almost no talent behind it, no ncaa tourney for the foreseeable future and going into a much better league. Id take coach k in a heartbeat. At least he brought in talent. But we need new blood in the program.

[Utehomer42]

Unfortunately the win against TDS solidified the chances of him being here next year

[Ute Dub]

I’m usually a Ute coach apologist but what worries me about Smith is the lack of defensive identity as the season wears on. Allowing 90 points a game every other game is concerning. Is Rollie Worster that important to our defensive identity?

[chinngiskhaan]

it is strange. On paper, we should be a great defensive team. We have tons of length, and that almost always translates to great defense, especially in the college game where you can play zone, and extra length shrinks the zones you have to defend. The fact that our senior laden team sucks at defending the three is bizarre, and speaks to a coaching deficiency in that regard.

[loyter]

The defensive strategy seems to be allow the opponent to drive or shoot at will and hope the bigs can get a block. Rebounding is optional, although we tend to be close or ahead in rebounding just by sheer size.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, I think that he can keep his job because the guy that hired him is still his boss and he’s only on Year 3 of a guaranteed six year contract. I’ve been saying that, probably due to money issues, Smith gets at least one more year. Now, if the Utes end the year with a 10 game losing streak and, ultimately, a losing record with a talented, senior laden team, that might even give Harlan pause. At that point, Smith’s buyout will be $5.55M.

[Trailgoat]

IMO, Harlan won’t stick around long enough to fire Smith next year. Tough situation for the BB team moving to the B12 next season. Harlan’s years of riding the Chris Hill bandwagon are fading. Chris Hill was not perfect, I get it. Harlan’s had to make two big hires so far in his time at Utah, Farden and Smith. Harlan jumped ship when things got dicey at USF taking heat for not backing his head football coach and academic fraud with the BB team under Orlando Antiqua, Harlan hired and then fired. Harlan hired football HC Charlie Strong who also got fired after Harlan left with a poor record and NCAA compliance issues under Harlan’s watch. In general, fans at USF were not sad to see him leave and it was perceived he was a short timer from the day he started. Harlan was not well liked by UCLA fans either for allegedly lying about surveying students on plans for a Pauley Pavilion renovation. The guy sounds too slippery to me with all of his name dropping and self promotion. Somewhat odd him going to social media announcing he’s not interested in the UofA AD job? Seems weird to me coming from an AD. I’m sure there’s a lot of good he’s done, his record of hiring coaches is not impressive.

[Utah#1]

I’d give him one more year so Utah doesn’t have to buyout his contract and then begin looking for another coach. He had his opportunity with all that talent on the team and wasted it away.

I didn’t like when they hired him three years ago as it didn’t to be any significant progress or improvement in the program. If there was any, it was minimal.

[chinngiskhaan]

He brought that talent in though,with the exception of BC. Smith has been fine. He’s made things a little better. The problem is his ceiling as a coach has been reached IMO. He isn’t good enough.

[RustyShackleford]

Let’s go get Chris Beard! *ducks*

[fosternano]

I was honestly really hoping Utah would go after him. If things go sideways at the end of the season I would even settle for Mark Adams. He came in after at Texas tech and is an assistant at east carolina now.

[The Miami Ute]

Based on what I’ve seeing, the Utes need to go 5-2, with the losses being at Colorado and Oregon, and win a game or two in the PAC tournament to feel good about making the postseason. Anything less than that, and it’s highly likely they’ll be watching the tournament on TV. That loss to ASU, from a national perspective, has taken a lot of the luster off the program.

[fosternano]

I mean, even if they do make it to the post season it’ll be considered a road game. Everything this team has shown us this year is they can’t win on the road.

[Minnesota Ute]

I hung on as long as I could, I liked a lot of what I saw early, but I’m out. I stand my my opinion that he is an upgrade from K. but at the end of the day, he isn’t getting it done.

One of my observations is he has a habit of infantilizing the team. He refers to them as “kids” and refers to coaching like “parenting”. He also says things like “we are a good free throw shooting team”, then you hear the “kids” parroting that line. It all just smacks of not holding them accountable, and if you don’t make them responsible for their performance, they’ll only get better if they are internally motivated. In my experience, less than 50% of people are sufficiently internally motivated to achieve excellence.

[palos_verdes_ute]

I heard Chris Holtmann is available…..
Danced 7 out of 10 years.