Men’s Basketball Transfers

[Dante Guardi]

I see a lot of people on this app talking about how so many guys transfer out of our program and I don’t really understand it. Yes, a few guys transfer but the only ones that have been good elsewhere are Devon Daniels who was suspended twice in the 1 year he played for us and the only other guy that did anything good elsewhere is Makol Mawien who never even played for the utes. Most of the guys who transfer were bench players or bench warmers. Can someone explain!?

[stonguse]

Chapman and Ogbe did pretty well after leaving.

[TheJuggernaut]

Chapman was a problem child and Ogbe couldn’t stay healthy.

[TheJuggernaut]

It’s a bunch of hand wringing over nothing. The only players who have transferred out under Larry K that actually could have helped us win games are Daniels (documented problem child), Brekott Chapman (also problem child), Mawien (never played a minute for the Utes), and Vante Hendrix, who left due to personal reasons (someone more in the know than I can expound). Maybe add Jojo Zamora and Ken Ogbe in there too, although Zamora was mostly underwhelming on the court during his time at Utah and Ogbe couldn’t stay healthy. Looking back I wish Larry could have found a way to keep Mawien and Hendrix in the program.
All the angst is people reading about the total number of tranfers and thinking the sky is falling, when in reality it’s much ado about nothing.
Now, if any of Tillman, Gach, Allen, or Battin leaves after the season I’m going to be seriously bothered. If those four stay through graduation and we get solid play out of some combination of Thioune, Gaskin, RJones, Van Kommen, Brenchley, Carlson, and Jantunen there is potential for a really nice run.

[CincyUte]

Mawien simply wasn’t ready.  He ended up going to Juco route for a year before ending up at Kansas State.

But Chapman and Daniels appeared to be guys we could potentially build the team around.  Last year could have been incredible if both of them had stayed and if Kuzma had not left early.

[TheJuggernaut]

Agree, I’ve wondered how much of Daniels and Chapman leaving was their “bad attitudes” and how much was Larry’s personality and approach.

[UteThunder]

The problem isn’t whether or not they were contributors here or after they left. The problem is the lack of continuity and player development over the long haul.

Every team loses a handful of players every year to graduation. Then, you throw in the occasional early entry to the NBA draft (Wright, Poetl, Kuzma) and most teams are going to struggle the following year. But when you have a handful of transfers on top of that every single year, that is half of your roster turning over every year. This leaves your program in a constant state of rebuilding.

Larry’s transfers are very similar to Kyle’s OC carousel: Explain away the circumstances surrounding each transfer/hire all you want, but when they happen with the consistency we’ve seen with both programs, it is going to hinder year to year success.

[UtahFanSir]

“The problem isn’t whether or not they were contributors here or after they left. The problem is the lack of continuity and player development over the long haul.”

Precisely. Every year is a near complete reboot. A group dominated by new parts assembled by the coaching staff. Takes half the season for them to play like a team.

If all the recruits were 5 and 4 star guys, much less of an issue. But the guys who will commit to Utah are rarely that. They require time to mature and develop. And too many don’t. For reasons that elude us, they leave.

The staff desparately needs stability in the player pipeline. So that what the players learn in one year, can be built upon in the next, for likely three to five seasons.

 

[FountainofUte]

I was pretty bummed about Chapman leaving. I have no insight to what he was like as a teammate or player for LK, but I saw him as a key piece to future success in his last two years. I was surprised to hear that he wanted out.

The Mawien case is an interesting one. Again, I don’t have insight to the program, but the “not ready” narrative seems like the public one in his case. If he was not ready, even after a RS year, it makes me wonder how that wasn’t seen in the recruiting process. How does that not get vetted out? Something does’t pass muster there.

As for all of the others, I really don’t lose sleep over them. Daniels would have been nice. I’d have loved another year of Kuzma, and thought he was crazy to leave early, but he got the last laugh on that one. Zamora, Seely, and many others were not likely the “difference that makes the difference.”

Don’t get me wrong, generally speaking stability is better than instability. And at a certain point you wonder why some of these problems or holes in one’s game aren’t seen earlier. But I’m actually confident in the direction of the program going forward.

This young team seems to be catching up to D1 speed. An NCAA berth is unlikely unless they win the conf tourney, but I think they’re building for a fun run the next few years.

…But let’s see who’s still here by next November.

[vcsg01]

Chapman had a few good games his freshman year, but if you look at his career stats he didn’t ever put up great numbers. Even at Weber St. I had high hopes for him too though.

[chinngiskhaan]

Yeah, he had potential but he clearly was not very coachable. He had on quirks in his game that coaches surely tried to address (you could easily see him staring at the ball while he shot instead of focusing on the front of the rim like every player is taught). He also either could not or would not do what he needed to develop his body. He was a weakling.

[CincyUte]

Chapman was getting 15 minutes per game during his freshman season on a very solid Utah roster.  It dropped off a couple minutes as a sophomore, but he could have possibly been a starter the following (junior) season on the Kuzma-Daniels-Collette-Bonham team.  I would have liked to see that.