This is part of the problem

[UtesRule]

With Utah basketball right now.
Granted, it is not the Big Dance, but Utah is still one of only 24 teams in Men’s college basketball that is still playing and as noted, is still playing hard.
But, why is no one talking about it??!!
Why were there only 3,804 fans at the game??!!
Why is no one talking about Deivon Smith getting his 4th Tripple Double on the season, which ties the number a guy named Jason Kidd got at Cal (he was PRETTY good)??!!
If we want Utah Basketball to be a top National (or at least regional) program again, WE HAVE TO SUPPORT IT AS ONE!!!
USU and BYU both sell out most games (even early this season, when USU had an entirely new team and coaching staff, they had great, raucous fan support).
We’ve sold out the last 7,000,000 home football games and fans are psycho crazy at those games, yet we can’t muster a mere 10-12,000 fans INDOORS in one of the better college arenas around???!!!
Recruiting would pick up and winning would follow (and frankly, this team HAS made progress from where they were when Smith took over from coach K)!
Go UTES…Beat VCU to get to the NIT Final Four!
Would be a nice springboard for next season.

[utefansince79]

3 of us will be there Wednesday night. Will note that parking is FREE for these NIT games (in the parking garage as well as lots directly south of the garage).

[SteelUte]

I’ll admit, that I am part of the problem.
I want the Runnin’ Utes to be good, I really really do!
My life is so busy that going to the games is just really hard. Young kids playing sports and their school work. Get home from work and rush in to SLC for a night game. It’s hard. Part of it is me, part of it is the team.
But, its a chicken and egg situation.
Will a successful team lead to more fan support?
Or will fan support lead to more team success?
I’m going to do all I can to go on Wednesday, but I realize I’m a drop in the bucket.
I really hope we can get this team back to national relevance again.

[MDUte]

I think what’s most frustrating is the fact that this Utah roster is, without question, more than talented enough that the Utes should’ve made the NCAA Tournament this year. Anyone that gets online claiming Utah needs to recruit better players doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The problem isn’t talent, it’s coaching. Craig Smith isn’t the guy unfortunately that we all hoped he’d be. He and his staff did a really good job recruiting/assembling this roster. But not being able to coach and lead this roster to the NCAA Tournament is all Utah fans need to know…FAILURE and evidence the reset button will be getting hit yet again at some point when the AD can afford it.

Everyone should be happy for the players that they get to continue to enjoy postseason success and play. But I think Utah fans want to come out and be part of the Runnin’ Utes future and unfortunately Craig Smith ain’t it. Down vote and flame away…I’ll even start with the first down vote, because it sucks even typing this!

[Kellso]

We just bought tickets to Wednesdays game. It looked like there are many tickets sold. People that purchased the tickets need to show up. We did the same with season tickets this year. Many seat around us were sold. The same seats were empty during the games.

[Staples]

My guess is that there weren’t as many tickets sold as it looked like because season tickets holders had first dibs on their tickets until noon yesterday. What that does tell us is that there are a lot of season ticket holders that aren’t showing up.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I respectfully disagree with your talent assessment. After watching four days of tournament play it’s obvious to me we don’t have the athletes to compete. Being tall and being a good shooter isn’t enough anymore. Our only athletic player Smith out rebounds our 2 7 ft guys. Imagine if we had 4 or 5 players of Smiths caliber at 6-5” to 6-8”. It’s about offensive rebounds, steals and driving to the basket and finishing above the rim. I would take an athletic 30% 3 point shooter over a non athletic 40% shooter. Iowa has a similar roster and they also didn’t make the tournament. Smith needs to recruit and develop athletes. Whitt has done it for years.

[MDUte]

Basketball and Football are very different. Just look at the Majerus coached teams and you’ll find a much larger lack of athleticism. But well coached basketball players can out-execute elite athleticism, just like how we beat North Carolina in the Final Four.

Going into that game Majerus joked that Carolina is on Sports Center every night with above the rim highlights and that Utah’s roster of mostly slow, white guys, was preparing for the dunk-a-rama. And we all know what happened in that game. Point being, as long as you have scoring weapons, a point guard, height/length, and discipline…you can beat any team on any given night in basketball with execution (offensive and defensive). Problem with Craig Smith’s coaching is his team doesn’t execute on defense. Utah has scorers (Brandon Carlson, Gabe Madsen) and a terrific PG/playmaker (Deivon Smith) and height/length (Keita, Lovering) and terrific role players to surround this nucleus with (Bajema, Erickson, Ben Carlson, Whalin, Exacte, Tarlac). Guaranteed, Majerus would at least take this roster to the Sweet Sixteen.

[Distantute]

That ‘98 team had 4 nba players on it. It was extremely talented. If smith could recruit a single nba player that would be a good start. But no comparison between majerus recruits and smith recruits.

[MDUte]

4 NBA players because the team was so successful. Majerus put all 4 of those guys in the NBA (Van Horn, Miller, Doleac, and Mottola). But none of them were highly recruited players out of high school. Nobody would take a chance on Miller as a prop-48 kid. And it took a couple of years to develop Miller into the legend we all remember. Doleac was an unknown big coming out of Oregon. And Mottola was plucked out of Europe/Finland before that was even a thing. Majerus turned all of them into NBA guys but NONE of them were that way coming into the program.

Brandon Carlson and Deivon Smith would’ve been draft picks under Majerus….no doubt about it. And I would be willing to bet that Keita and Madsen would as well. You’re looking back with the benefit of hindsight while overlooking the impact (positive or negative) coaching has on it.

[NarfUte]

If KVH were on the 1998 team we would have a championship… (Britton Johnsen was the other NBA player on the ’98 team)

[MDUte]

My bad. Yes KVH wasn’t part of the Final Four team. And considering the Final Four team the 4th NBA player would be Britton Johnsen. Point still stands that none of those guys gets drafted without Majerus. Put those 4 guys on Craig Smith’s team and their career ends in college.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I won’t argue with your Majerus take. He got the most out of his players. It’s a different era in basketball. The defense is much better. The players are way more athletic and long. This Utah team looks like a Majerus team. Spread the floor pick and roll is the new offensive sets. We have the shooters but who besides Smith can finish at the rim in traffic? I know football is a different sport but Whitt recruits speed and athleticism and develops their talent. I don’t see that in basketball.

[highlandute7]

Where is the best place to get tickets for Wed’s game?

[NarfUte]

If you buy via utah ticketmaster and use the code 24NIT0310DOLLAR before Noon they are $10

Try this Link for tickets

[Tony (admin)]

Fans like winners. What came first, the chicken or the egg? The NIT is the kids table. Wish it wasn’t. Also in general, people’s interest in college basketball is declining.

[AlohaUte]

It’s still more than MBB has accomplished recently. Sure, it’s not the NCAA tourney, but still… we haven’t even made the NIT recently.

[chinngiskhaan]

Its the NIT, and its college basketball. You don’t need to look any further than that.

So Utah is competing for a chance to be like the 70th best team in CBB. WOOPDEEDOOO!!

[Central Coast Ute]

I’m sorry, but blaming the fans is a huge copout. We’re not out there on the floor. We’re not coaching. We’re not recruiting. Blame the fans all you want for recruiting issues, but it wasn’t long ago that the Utes sent three first round picks to the NBA. The fans have supported this program for decades, and especially in a year like this year, we expect to make the tourney. This team has underachieved. They should have been way better than how they finished.

[FountainofUte]

This is where I am too.

Yes, our attendance and vibe at mbb right now is bad. But it didn’t used to be…until the program has slogged along for most of the last two decades. And 8 years w/o an NCAA berth is crazy.

I know it’s chicken/egg, but the unfortunate reality is that some coach is going to have to figure out how to build a Tourney-worthy team with tepid fan support. Once a coach starts building a nationally competitive team, the fans will come back. It’s not like the attendance dropped overnight. Again, this is a fan base that has supported its team for generations. But there’s been precious little to get excited about of late.

I’m still convinced that the Runnin Utes can come back to life with a rockin’ Hunty. But you can’t expect people to show up by the thousands to a team that hasn’t made the Dance in 8 years.

[Trailgoat]

College basketball continues on the decline. Personally, the college BB game overall is hard to watch. As for Utah, poor free throw shooting, missed lay-ups, ball watching defense, long stretches of overall bad basketball is not fun to watch. As for talent, half the team is made up of mid to lower level D1 players.

Purely a pot stirring opinion adding to the conversation, I wondered if Krystkowiak did some behind the scenes program sabotage after getting canned from Utah. Found it odd at the time, no known coaches showed interest in the Utah coaching job. Coach K received a lot of media mileage as a national BB celebrity. Coach K did nothing more than collect a pay check his last two years at Utah while the local and national media were very defensive of the guy. His kid while at UoA took media shots at Utah’s basketball program. Harlan with a shady coaching hire past does not help the matter. Grasping at straws here considering Utah’s storied BB past, excellent facilities, and at one time a very robust fan base. Problem could be as simple as the continued decline in college BB viewership combined with Utah BB being down for so many years. B12 is not going to make it easier. Hopefully the program turns it around.

[Extra Medium]

It’s unwatchable.

The product is just bad. I don’t care who is playing. College basketball is terrible.

[pedro]

I think you are dead on. I know we haven’t been to a game since Smith got here, until this year. They are progressing and we fans need to show for them IMHO. It’s pretty sad, when last weeks first round game, I yell “take it at him Brandon” and the whole arena looked right at me. (FTR, he did and he scored).

I view this as voting for president, you vote, I don’t care for whom, you get to bitch. You don’t go to games, you don’t get to say squat about them.

Go Utes!

[Central Coast Ute]

Yeah, I’m not flying to SLC to watch the Utes play in the NIT. I’ll still complain if I want to. Basketball and politics are quite different.

[The Miami Ute]

Brother, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve gone to the majority of home games since my family and I moved back to Utah in 2019 and I understand your point. My guess would be that the Utah fanbase has gotten infected with the football success and if the basketball team can’t mirror it, then I guess most casual fans, which I would submit is the majority of the fanbase, will deem it not worth their time. The other thing is that being a fervent basketball fan requires A LOT more disposable time than being a fervent football fan, especially if you have a family and work committments.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Definitely a correlation between football success and basketball decline Miami. Seasons overlap and instead of putting football behind and looking forward to basketball it’s the opposite. Football with the bowl games go into January. Also playing sisters of the poor in the non conference games don’t bring much excitement early.

[GameForAnyFuss]

This seems like a good time to repeat what I said the other day: Football success has ruined Utah fans. Now we will only spend our time and money on winners.

I see sold-out basketball arenas in Logan and Provo and I wonder how much of it is because of their garbage football programs. They see basketball season on the horizon and say “finally…something we’re good at”. We see basketball season on the horizon and say “I’m not suffering through that.”

And this is not a “chicken and egg” problem. We need fans before we’ll be successful. The top talent (which we aren’t getting today) will only come when there’s fans in the stands and money in the bag. We need people in the arena for either of those to happen.

[TX_UTE]

Have to agree with GameForAnyFuss. During my time on the Hill, Men’s BB was King, we had to camp out at the Special Events Center the night before game tix where released to get student seats while you could walk up to Rice-Eccles at the start of any FB game and get your tickets. As George C. Scott’s Patton character put it, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser”.

[Rick]

I am only speaking for myself here but my lack of in person support is really a combination of things. First, all of the games are on TV and when it is 15 degrees outside and snowing, I am not a fan of going out to watch something I can see at home. Second, I hate watching bad basketball. No sport p**ses me off more than basketball when it is played poorly. I am not asking for perfection but just fundamental execution. Poor free throw shooting. Going under screens on a shooter. Not boxing out on rebounds. Poor court awareness. The list goes on. Third, I do not have faith in Smith as a coach for the Utes. He has now had three full seasons and I just don’t think he is the guy. I had a much different feeling for Larry at the same time in his coaching span here and would go to many games in person. Maybe I am just getting older but I just do not get excited about Smith as our coach. I never thought he was a great hire. I always thought he was an easy hire. Just my two cents.