I think K3 is a good coach. The second half season rescue you mention is absolutely happening, and has been for years. The lack of program continuity because of player turnover is killing momentum for Utah basketball. It requires half a season for the parts K3 & Co. assembles to come together as a team. Pre- and post-Delon, Jakob and Justin, Utah has been a very wobbly ship of players.
Yet I think K3 as an X and Os guy, and his stable staff, are good.
Why can’t Utah recruit better? A minor part of that is pay for athletes. Utah has lost some in the last minute to programs that have. But I think that is making excuses.
The issue is deeper, IMHO. I wonder if Utah simply does not have recruiting closers. K3 does not appear to be one. Or if coaches are not incorporating into evaluations a measure of how team oriented recruits are. I think Utah has lost a lot of luster as a program, and maybe part of the issue is Salt Lake City. Better kids want to go to Arizona, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Gonzaga, just elsewhere. It has become highly unlikely that Utah will sign 5* recruits. If one of the perennial programs wants such a kid, they go there.
K3 did okay in recruiting over the last two years and I think next seasons class, which includes two return missionaries, could be good. I’ve long held that without a really good point guard, a team will be average at best. So Rylan Jones is a huge get. Also, I think Mikael Jantunen will be good. Local RM’s 4* Branden Carlson and 3* Jaxon Brenchley, don’t know, but it may take them a year to just be ready to play.
Maybe the players have not been helping in recruiting. The discord on the team has been so obvious viz player turnover, that when recruits are away from coaches and ask players what they think of the coach, they respond in a way that turns potential signees away. I don’t know that is happening, but I do wonder about it. Majerus had that issue near as I could tell.
K3 does seem to me to be a hard guy to please. He rides his players pretty hard. He does it less now, but I remember a few years ago he would call players out a bit on the post game radio show. He wasn’t being mean, just frank. Maybe players did not feel protected. Some survive and thrive in that environment, others go elsewhere.
Utah’s lack of recruiting success for whatever reason has forced Utah to sign kids who have been issues for team chemistry. Marshall Henderson, Brekkott Chapman, and Devon Daniels come to mind. In fact, if you look at the kids Utah signed from say 2011 to now and the number of kids who were complete washouts for Utah, it boogles the mind. Then Utah’s classes have been near the bottom of the conference for a decade (until recently), and on top of that many of the kids who come leave early.
So something deep and systemic is going on. I don’t really know what that is. Yet collectively that trend has greatly suboptimised (I know, not a real word) Utah’s progress back to the glory days. Not to be too pointed, that does reflect poorly on the head coach.
I really hope Utah can maintain the best players on the team. I can see at least one transfer, not to mention names, but I really hope Utah can hold on to its freshman and sophomore players. Then the group coming in should allow Utah to develop into a better team going forward with continuity.
The conference is mediocre this year, and has virtually no national respect. Utah is again overachieving compared to where sports writers thought it would do. Credit K3 & Co. Last year, the NIT team made it to Madison Square Garden for the final. So K3 can coach. Can he recruit players for continuity? The verdict is still out.
.
Loading ...
