Really pleasantly surprised by the basketball team after game 1

[chinngiskhaan]

really really surprised. I knew this team had good young talent, but I did not think we would be winning many (if any) road games against decent teams, much less the first game of the year. Some things that stuck out to me (to be taken with a grain of salt because I really don’t think Nevada is any good this year).

 

– This team played with more poise than any I’ve seen since Delon graduated.

– Timmy Allen is going to really struggle playing against good teams with good size unless he can at least learn to hit free throws consistently.

– Rylan Jones is as fundamentally sound as I had imagined. He is also a REALLY great passer. He’s going to be amazing when he has a couple years under his belt.

– Both Gach… Man, that guy has NBA level potential. His slithery athleticism reminds me of Delon, but he is a really good shooter, and he’s bigger. When he’s done he could go down as the best offensive player we’ve had in the post Majerus era. He could be that good.

– Can’t stand the flops from Plummer and Battin. Just play defense.

– On the opposite side of that spectrum was Jantunnen, who is already an excellent rebounder. Really happy with him.

– Plummer is going to be a lot like Dakari Tucker. Gives us a great spark some games, disappears for several games at a time… Wins some for us, loses some for us.

– Carlson is already better than Jayce. He is just as good at getting in the way on defense, just as good rebounding, much better offensively, and actually knows how to shoot a basketball in a way that doesn’t make me writhe in physical and psychological pain.

– Rylan really makes the offense flow… Did I mention he is going to be really good for us?

– We will struggle against older, more experienced teams with size… going to the post a lot like we did and getting to the line is how we are going to stay in a lot of games this year.

[chinngiskhaan]

Also, this team is infinitely more likeable than any of the last few iterations. These guys know how to play hard without making stupid mistakes.

[GameForAnyFuss]

Couldn’t agree more with everything that’s been said here. Carlson is going to be Utah’s next star big man. Love the way Jones handles the ball and sees the court. When the going gets tough, we’ll rely on Both and Timmy to pull out games for us…and I think they can do it. Jury is still out on the rest of the newcomers.

The only real negative I saw was the inability to adjust to Lindsey Drew. If we can’t learn how to deal with certain players’ tendencies, we’re going to see a few individuals put up big numbers on us.

[chinngiskhaan]

Yeah. Is Jones really 6 ft tall? Maybe if you measure from the tip of his crazy straight hair. He is going to struggle to defend bigger guards. Guys like Drew will have no problem simply shooting over the top of him, and he doesn’t have the quickness that Brandon Taylor did to get in underneath them and take away any possible breathing room. ?

 

I do think Gach has the potential to be a phenomenal defender, I also think guys like Timmy Allen can help in that respect. TBH I think Drew wasn’t defender horribly bad, except on his first 3 treys. He was just making shots.

 

Our big man rotation of Carlson, Jantunen, and Thioune is infinitely more appealing than Jayce and Battin. Battin is okay as a floor spacing big (his charge taking is getting on my nerves, just play defense), but he has no business being our biggest guy on the floor.

[utefansince79]

More to be happy about then dissappointed about last night (often the case when you beat a decent opponent on their own floor).

Free throw shooting was poor (until the last few minutes) and I hope we can start hitting more threes.

Very much liked our ability to penetrate and either finish or get to the line.

We dominated rebounding which is great.

What I like best though is how our young team kept their composure and poise when Nevada had a few runs (in particular midway through the second half) and had the crowd pumped up.  Would be common for a team to collapse at that point, but we responded well at those times.

Will note I quite liked and respected the Reno crowd.  They were loud and supportive of their team and despite Utah having a significant advantage in free throw attempts, (which in some arenas would have had lots of boos and “ref you suck” chants), they were knowledgable and recognized Utah was getting those attempts due to us attacking the basket.    Had the occasional booing on a few close calls, but nothing over the top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GameForAnyFuss]

Yeah I forgot to mention the rebounding. I’m so happy to finally have a Utah team that can rebound!

[ironman1315]

And Thioume’s blocks were insane.

[loyter]

I like the positivity about the basketball team, but let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves. Nevada literally returned 2 players off their entire roster from last year, and one those two played a combined 12 minutes per game last year. In other words, Nevada is a bad team. I’m going to remain skeptical for now.

I think this Ute team has a chance to be pretty good next year…if the roster doesn’t empty out yet again. For this year, there will be many lessons to learn.

I really liked Jones’ passing last night though. He’s got fantastic court vision.

The team looks far better than expected, but I was expecting a 10-12 win team.

[Hal Evans]

With all the Freshmen they only had 13 turnovers. It has been a long time since Utah did that in the first game.

[Bryan]

Here are my thoughts comparing the Boise State scrimmage and UT-Tyler performance to our Nevada game. Our 3 point shooting has been pretty bad for all three games, I know its early, but we need to improve the percentage or make it less of a focal point of the offense. Hopefully its just early season jitters. Rebounding has been good to great for all three contests. Our Freshman bigs are all an improvement over the previous group. In the first two games our turnovers were out of control. Great to see this young team go into a hostile environment, get challenged, keep their composure, take care of the ball, and pull out a win. Free throw percentage was much lower in the Nevada game than the others. Not too worried because its probably just a fluke, Timmy is statistically much better than what we saw Tuesday night. Again, our bigs were 5 of 6 from the charity stripe, (Carlson 4/4 and Lahat 1/2) much better than the < 50% our bigs put up last year.
When comparing this team to last year I think Timmy, Both and Riley are all better as Sophomores, Carlson is a wash defensively and a big upgrade offensively, and Jones may not defend as well or score as much as Sedrick, but will be a plus in other areas of the game. Overall, I don’t see why this team isn’t better than last years. I just worry about how much other PAC-12 teams improved as well. Should be a fun year. If our top 6 or 7 players all come back next year with the 2020 recruiting class, we should all be in for a great ride.