What is the goal of Utah men's basketball?

[Tony (admin)]

Is the goal to “exceed expectations?!” Yippee we did awesome because we were picked eighth and finished better than that! It seems like Larry’s goal is to play well enough to make the top four in the Pac 12 tournament in order to secure a bye for the first game. That’s all he ever seems to talk about with regards to wins and losses. His logic seems to be that the the only chance to make the NCAA tournament is by winning the PAC 12 tournament. Why isn’t the goal to play well enough in the regular season to make the NCAA tournament?

[EagleMountainUte]

Something isn’t working. But when I look at this salary and you see the Exodus of players and terrible losses. Not only that his horrible clock management. That is my biggest complaint right now. You see how he manages end of halves and games. Just inept. 

[GameForAnyFuss]

You’re asking the wrong question. Like any organization, it doesn’t particularly matter what the employee’s goals are – what matters is what the employee’s boss’ goals are. So whatever LK thinks success looks like isn’t really relevant. The relevant goals are Harlan’s. So you’d be better off asking what is Harlan’s goal for MBB.

[User Suspended]

Harlans goal is to put his feet up on his desk, don’t rock the boat and collect a fat check.  In other words – dead weight

[GameForAnyFuss]

Yep, Harlan does nothing. That’s why we went to the Vegas Bowl instead of the Holiday Bowl this past year. 😏

[cjd1]

So is it Larry’s fault that we are not attracting top talent? If it is then I guess he has to go if we feel that way because nothing is going to change.

[Charlie]

Goodness, we start the year with the goal to win every game. If a young team isn’t winning games in the preseason, it is only smart to adjust goals. There are lots of deficiencies teams may have but lofty enough goals is not often a problem. Execution is more the issue. But realize, like a famous general once stated, the other guys have plans also. I think many issues this year have been when other teams hit on adjustments we don’t have good answers for or when our shot leaves us or consistency in general. I expect goals are just fine.

[stonguse]

The goal is the NCAA tournament. Years where we fall short can be made up with deep runs in other years. With our resources, there’s no reason to expect otherwise.

[Matthew Thomas Castleton]

That depends upon the particular personnel the team has. And this year’s team is made up of a bunch inexperienced players, sans Parker Van Dyke and Sedrick Barefield. They struggled early in the season because of said youth and inexperience. Now, since they are more experienced, having played a full 30-game season, they’re better. They also had no identity at the start of the season, but a clear-cut one now. It wasn’t really all that unexpected that they’d struggle early on because of the amount of key players they lost to graduation from last year’s team (Bibbins, Collette, Rawson, Bealer, etc.).

[M-dash]

It’s not so much that Larry K has underperformed on the whole with the talent he has season-by-season. Nor do I have too much gripe with his ability to recruit good talent. Rather, his failure to retain good talent or even solid role players from one season to the next. As a result, he always has the youth and inexperience card to play, and he has not successfully built a program that can be reloaded instead of rebuilt. If Larry K can retain his young core over this offseason, that will go a long way toward addressing my concern. I am not, however, holding my breath.

[TheJuggernaut]

What “good” talent has Larry let get away? Problem children Brekott Chapman and Devon Daniels? Ken Ogbe, who couldn’t stay healthy? Jojo Zamora, who showed little on the court at Utah? Makol Mawein, who clearly wasn’t ready while at Utah? What “good” talent are you talking about?

[Puget Ute]

Devon Daniels was probably the biggest loss on that list.  He had 9 pts/4 rb/1.7 assist per game.  But against ranked teams he averaged closer to 5 pts.

Isaiah Wright had a decent career at USD (and torched byu a number of times – heh heh…), and we maybe could have used him in the guard rotation this year.  But he certainly would **NOT*** have have beat out Sedrick Barefield for a starting role, and he was a lot smaller than PVD (and nowhere near the shooter – PVD went almost 43% from 3pt(!)) and Both Gach.

We could have used Makol Mawien’s size this year.  Maybe he would have seen the court in useful times, and some Utah fans were grousing about losing him to Kansas State after he scored 29 pts vs Kansas last year. I am extremely happy for him to have made it to the Elite 8 last year.   But he averaged 7 pts/4 reb in 20+ minutes per game this year.

We lost some decent talent.  The talent who stayed behind were at least as good or better on average than those who left, and our current FR/SO and next year’s FR are all extremely talented.

**edit – typo. No way Ike Wright would have beat out Sed for a starting role this year.

[TheJuggernaut]

We’ve lost talent, no doubt, but for good reason. Mawien was not ready to play, there was no way of knowing if he ever would be. Daniels was a locker room cancer who punched Jayce Johnson in practice. Wright showed very little on the court during his time at Utah.

Yes we lost some talent, but there are reasons behind those losses. Anybody complaining about Larry’s “failure to retain good talent” is focused more on the headlines at ksl.com than they are actual facts.

[Puget Ute]

Exactly.  This is why the “all the good players are leaving” narrative is patently false and misleading.