Pelle Larson, shades of Delon Wright last night 4 steals, 4 assists, 3 rebounds,

[Ute Dub]

14 points on an efficient 5-9 shooting. He’s 15 of 27 from 3 this year, 55.6%. 27 of 29 from the charity stripe, 93.1%. Pelle is currently the teams 4th leading scorer. He’s a very athletic 6’5″ freshman who turns 20 this month, I think, so he is older than most freshman. Damnit, I would love to see some fan excitement build around these Running Utes! Take Larry K out of the equation, don’t want to think about him, but I’d like to see my Utes get back to good ol’ Utah basketball. 

[Tony (admin)]

You and me both.

[chinngiskhaan]

I think most of us are in fact excited about the players on the team, but the lack of year to year progress (dealing with the same issues year in and year out), is what makes most fans intolerant of the situation.

[Ute Dub]

Therefore, not excited, right?

[Ute2]

I echo this sentiment. I really like Utah’s roster. I loved it last year.

And k recruited them. So I’m caught in a vortex of being thrilled with his recruiting and dumbfounded about some of the coaching.

[Ute Dub]

I agree. There was an article in the Deseret news comparing the state of Utah basketball to its history of 30 years ago until now. It’s a great read, but what stood out to me was what a great trajectory Larry K had with Delon Wright, Poeltl, Kuzma, with a couple sweet 16 runs, and let’s not forget Brekkot Chapman “should” have been better than them all but he valued other life choices above basketball. Then the trajectory lost steam. I believe the Lauri Markennan recruiting loss when he was all but a Ute until he visited AZ and committed his first 15 minutes on campus was a major blow and a deflating issue to the coaches. Mods on pay for sites believe what happened there could only happen via player payment. Devon Daniels off court issues hurt as he would have been a 4 year starter. So it seems like post Kuzma the coaching staff lost something…maybe their drive, maybe they got resentful, maybe the audit embarrassed them, IDK. They did lose Slocum as a coach around that time. Anyway, the vortex is real like you said. I want these guys to win, but I also want the proper coaching that builds them up and develops them.

[Ute2]

Hmmm. That’s an interesting idea about slocum leaving. Maybe they lost some important ideas in the coaching room.

I know for my part, I’ve done some coaching at the high school level for lacrosse. I was great at coaching some aspects of the game and very weak in others.

Maybe nobody is around anymore to be strong where k is weak? I dunno. It’s a vortex of weirdness because recruiting, defense, rebounding, defensive transition all seem like areas we’re really good at. But other stuff just looks so horrible.

[Ute2]

I do think also that the staff was building around kuzmas senior year and that didn’t happen the way they planned which has hurt perception in a big way. (Not to excuse some crazy crap that’s gone on on the court lately.)

[Charlie]

It is not hard to imagine the Utah staff can get discouraged when competing directly with other league programs that are cheeting take recruits Utah has great chance to get.  Larry also got caught by bad luck when Tinkle, bound for Utah, switched and went to OSU when his dad was made HC.  Some of these players would have made a big difference.  When Donny Daniels came in I was hoping he would help the players with old school coaching much the way he did with Majerus.  Time is running out, Utah needs to finish the year strong and much better than expected and retain the players.

[concerned]

I am not going to get excited until I see who comes back next year, at the earliest.

[dystopiamembrane]

I hardly ever get excited.

[D T]

If the recent trend continues & we can consistently play 40 min, there’s plenty to be excited about, including our Coach K….Go Utes!