I think there’s some interesting debate about whether we should be happy with this year’s MBB team that finished four spots above where they were picked, or disappointed for likely missing the NCAA Tourney.
Any year that we don’t make the Dance it’s a bummer. I mean, that’s always the very least that we hope for, right? But there’s a standard that I hold Utah basketball to in the big picture that gives me some perspective in years like this. I think of Utah basketball in five year cycles (or if you prefer, double this, and this is about what I think we should expect of Utah in a decade). This accounts for our past and what we’ve actually done, and also bakes in what I think being part of the PAC-12 does for us.
So here we go:
– 1 year – no NIT or NCAA
– 1 year – NIT
– 3 years – NCAA
– Of those three NCAA years, one of the years will have a deep run of Sweet 16 or more.
Frankly, that’s who we’ve been. At least in my lifetime as a Gen X’er, that’s been our MO. We have our peaks like ’95/96-’99/00 with Majerus (where we had 3 Sweet 16’s or deeper, with one [’99] that should have been deeper). Then, of course, we have the stretch of Giacoletti’s second season ’05/06 through Krystkowiak’s first year in ’11/12 which I’ve heard called the worst stretch of Utah basketball in the entirety of its history. The case could be made that both eras mentioned were outliers on the spectrum.
So who are we really? Well we’re one of only seven teams to have reached the Sweet 16 in every decade since the 1950s. And we’ve had our share of years with no post season or NITs rather than NCAAs. I can’t quite tell long-term what the PAC-12 means for us in basketball. This is our sixth season, which will likely turn out as an NIT bid. Which would bring our PAC-12 results to: Nothing, Nothing, NIT, Sweet 16, 2nd round, NIT. But that’s based on LK having to drain the swamp and start rebuilding from our historical low point. If we look forward six seasons, I’ll bet (and hope) it shows better than the last six which weren’t even that bad.
It’s possible that the PAC-12 effect on my five-year cycle boosts the low end and high end a click. For instance, I may cut our “no post season” instances in half to once per decade, and increase our deep run of S16 or deeper to 3 times per decade. That’s what I’d hope for anyway.
Taking the long view, I think we can still hold our head high for this season. It’s not going to go down in the books as one of the great ones, but it’s far from a bad one, too. And it would appear that with nothing more than we know we’ll have today (lose Bonam, add Tillman, Daniels is a question mark) that we have the kind of team that should at least make the NCAA again next year. I think we’re hitting the marks of what Utah basketball is.
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