Steph to the portal.

[Rick]

This one hurts a little.

[utefansince79]

Other than Branden who is testing his NBA chances, other departures were players that sat on the bench alot, but Lazar has had stready minutes.

 

 

[Rick]

He was a double digit scorer and made the PAC 12 all freshman team last year.  I would call this a significant loss given our current roster.  He was one of the players that seemed to have given up in their last game.  He looked pretty disinterested and this move explains it.  

[utefansince79]

Team seemed on an upward trend back in December, but right now seems to be in freefall.

I truly hope we have some surprises in store in the way of incoming talent soon but am not that hopeful at this point.

 

[//r00t4Utes]

Oh wow, hadn’t seen the news of Lazar xfering out. This is on par of Pelle Larsson transferring

[CoyoteUte]

Makes you wonder what the end of season interviews were like. I wasn’t a huge fan of Lazar, but thought he could have been a decent asset off the bench. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what Uncle Fester is cooking up behind the scenes.

[belli1976]

LMAO “Uncle Fester”

[palos_verdes_ute]

With Lazar’s transfer and Carlson (maybe?) off to the NBA, there is no more holdover from LK era.  This is truly Craig’s team now.

[Distantute]

I really hope im wrong but i dont see anything positive with smith. This team will be in the cellar next year.

[palos_verdes_ute]

agree.  we need to pickup some strong transfers to show us all wrong.  particularily, a real guard.  

[fosternano]

This is why the next year mentality doesn’t work anymore. It’s too easy to transfer now. By year 2 or 3 if you’re not having success it’s time to move on.

Sucks that it’s this way, but it’s the game everyone has to play now.

[alexsmith]

Honestly, after this transfer, this next year is extremely important. If the team doesn’t take a step forward, I don’t know if Smith is the coach

[The Miami Ute]

I’ve been saying since the day Smith was hired, a hire I was not in agreement with and you can look that up, that I would give him three solid years to see what he can do. Up to this point, the returns have been pretty mediocre. Yeah, I know that Smith has plenty of shills on this website that continue to go about what a great coach he is but the fact is that he’s not. A good to great coach, a guy like Cronin at UCLA, is able to pretty much provide tangible results from Season 1. Remember, this is basketball not football, and all you really need are two-three really good players to have a good team and make the Dance.

I’m originally from Miami, not far from Boca Raton (think the distance from SLC to Provo), where FAU is located. FAU is a commuter school that doesn’t even place in U.S. News and World Report college rankings. Can anyone here really tell me with a straight face that FAU is a more desirable location to play than Utah, or that they have access to higher-level basketball recruits, or that they devote more resources to their basketball program than Utah? I think the answer to all the questions posed is “No”. What they do have is a damn good coach who knows what he’s doing.

Here are my expectations…if the Utes don’t make the NCAAs next year, then Smith has to go. And if he does go, please hire Randy Bennett…thanks…

[Charlie]

Some of us watch TV and can’t understand why we are not the top team in the league. TV will not reveal the brutal facts of the current reality. Understanding the resources available from inside the athletic department, how they relate to the many teams ahead of Utah in the league and the actual possibilities is not entertaining to work thru. These things are not as simple as simply slapping leather and becoming the best option for one of the top coaches. There are more Pac BB teams ahead of us than behind us.

Three years and change, rinse and repeat, will likely keep you at the bottom forever. Take Cronin as an example. After his first 4 years at Cincinnati, with no NCAA appearances, he could have been tossed. Given time, he developed into one of the best. Whitt was similar. One conference championship, not in the first 3 years, in 6 years before the Pac 12. First 3 years were losing records, but played in the CCG the 8th year. Sure we could get Cronin after runs in the NCAAs like UCLA did, assuming Utah is like UCLA or Duke or Az or someone we are not like in basketball. If you are not one of those teams, reality check, we may need to grow a great coach to have one. We may need to get Cronin when he is still growing. Majerus was awesome, however Marquette, who could be considered in front of Utah, bounced Rick after 3 years without making it into the postseason. Marquette’s loss was Utah’s gain when Rick took off. They wish they would of had more patience.

Smith may or may not make it at this level but the answer to this question may not be known as quickly as some want.

[The Miami Ute]

Yeah, I’m sorry, I appreciate your well thought out comments, particularly when it comes to football but I’m not buying it. Smith has been a head coach for almost a decade with three different teams and has been to the NCAAs multiple times prior to Utah…to say that we need to “grow” him, well, I think that train left the station years ago. He is what he is and hoping that with more time, he’ll eventually gather a modicum of success, well, I don’t think that’s a valid method.

Another thing that kind of shocks me with the current state of the basketball fanbase is the utter lack of expectation or historical memory for what is a historic Men’s basketball program. As we stand here today, we’re talking about a team that’s in the Top 15 of wins all-time for basketball wins and yet some people here talk about them as if they’re some sort of expansion team. UCLA is a true basketball blue blood and has been since Wooden showed up in LA…however, Arizona, which you mention in your comment, was a historically bad program with zero basketball success or tradition until they hired Lute Olson away from Iowa (yes, I remember) and the rest, as they say, is history. Since Olson left, they’ve done something which Utah has been unable to do except for very short spells: build upon their success, and continue to stay relevant in basketball. The real question is why Utah can’t hire a Randy Bennett or Mark Few or someone like that to run its basketball program….some guy at the top of his game with a proven record at the highest levels.

[Charlie]

Lute was amazing, bordering on a unicorn, and moved Az into the circle of blue bloods. As schools look to get a coach like that, success is like 4 or 5%. Of course we would like to do that or get Bennett or Few. We just need to fight past schools with more resources to get a chance.

I watched the U play Az since the 60s in the WAC. After graduating from the U I moved on to Az for grad school for their first year in the Pac 10. Followed both since. As a ute I have always been envious of the AZ BB program and have wished to match their support, success and resources. I would not call them bad before Lute. While there I sat and watched them beat UCLA when that was still rare.

Sadly, growing Smith to a top level, landing a coach like Few, or otherwise becoming a BB blue blood are all small likelihoods for schools like Utah. I am game, I just realize each of the strategies are long shots. Not lottery rare but longer than most think. Utah did not move past better options to bring in Smith but we can always be better at creating options much like Smith can be better at finishing a season. Which ever option we use we can reasonably expect to get into the 64 even the 32 from the spot Utah sits in. Just get it done.

[The Miami Ute]

I would not call them bad before Lute.

These were the Wildcats’ season records in the four seasons before Lute Olson arrived in Tucson.

1982: 4-24
1981: 9-18
1980: 13-14
1979: 12-15

Yeah, based on that, I’d say that they were pretty bad bordering on horrific. Prior to that, as you probably remember, they had a decent run under Fred Snowden, making the NCAAs twice in the 70s, before the roof collapsed.

Finding a great coach is difficult but not impossible. For example, Mark Few makes about half of what Coach K was making his last couple of years in Utah. Mick Cronin now, makes just above what Coach K was making his last couple of years in Utah. Don’t tell me that we’re poor because we’re not…don’t tell me that we’re not pouring money into basketball, because we are. What we’re not doing is hiring the right guys for the job since Majerus left. And by the way, Harlan signed Smith to a six-year contract at just over $2M per annum so we might be seeing Craig, no matter what, until 2027.

[The Miami Ute]

Regarding Lazar, well, he’s just a guy…it’s not like he’s going to transfer to another P5 program and turn into Pete Maravich. On a good to great program, he’d be, at best, maybe the 8th to 9th guy off the bench. It just shows how low Utah basketball has sunk that he was getting major minutes every game with the Utes. I would have liked to have kept him, mainly for continuity and also to add depth to the bench but such is life.