Coach K

[Utes 69]

we all liked Larry, bottom line is you have to get wins!!!!!

[Utah5410]

Right. I haven’t seen one person posting anything negative about his character. As a person he represented the university well. But this is a business where a coach is paid extremely extremely well. And while being a good person on and off the court is a big portion of this job. Wins, losses and consistency are equally as important. They go hand in hand.

[Stone]

Although administrators would never say this out loud, I would venture to guess that wins/losses is about 85% of the job and the good person stuff is about 15%.

Yes, schools sometimes fire winning coaches for being bad people when it gets too bad from a public relations perspective (schools often look the other way as long as possible). But they 100% fire coaches that do not win, regardless of how good a person that coach may be.

[Ute Dub]

The thing is, Larry was very close to climbing the mountain to being a top 15 team. Something happened about the time Lauri Markenan was set to commit to Utah and then got paid off from AZ. That’s when Coach K got punched in the gut pretty hard and I’m not sure he fully recovered from that one. Perhaps the internal negativism of being robbed in such an unfair way took a toll on him? Look at the recruits Larry was bringing up to that point….Delon, Kuzma, Poeltl, Chapman, Loveridge, etc. He was on his way. And the roll players were solid too, Bachynski, Tucker, Taylor. Then he’s going to bring in Markenan, Devon Daniels and company and really compete. And it just didn’t get sustained. 

[snafu]

What happened was guys we needed to develop into solid players as juniors and seniors bailed for whatever reason. As a result we became perpetually young and inexperienced. 

That isn’t a formula most programs can win with, including us. Our best years have always been teams with experienced players with some young talent sprinkled in. 

[Rick]

I have never thought about the impact UA’s purchase of Lauri might have had on Larry.  It makes sense now and coupling that with the rise of the transfer portal and I could see where someone like Larry would become a bit disillusioned by the whole scenario.  I also think that what happened with Caleb Lohner and the zoobs had a huge impact on Larry.  I am not sure how Majerus would have even tried to handle something like this.  Maybe a few more pizzas from the Pie and some additional stints or something.