What this team lacks is coaching.

[loyter]

They are simply not prepared for situations. There were 4 occasions in last night’s game where they failed to get the ball inbounded from under their own basket. It’s too late in the year for that. The clock management in the last 30 seconds was horrific. A complete failure people have talked about low basketball IQ, but I think it’s poor preparation of the team by the coaching staff.

The inability to box out, the failure to pick good shots, the inability to make free throws, the fact that they weren’t ready to play in a TOURNAMENT game, etc…

Add to that the fact that Larry’s teams, over his tenure, must have an 85% failure rate scoring at the end of the half or at the end of the game.

There is a common thread, and it’s Larry and his staff. I love those guys, and I think they are running a nice program, but get used to these failings. As long as this staff is in place, nothing’s going to change. We’ll finish with 20-25 wins, 2 or 3 losses we should have never had, and a bunch of really close games against highly ranked teams that we ended up losing in crunch time.

Do not expect this program to overachieve, ever.

[Ute75]

Unfortunately, I can’t disagree with any of this. I’d like to, but I can’t.

It is what it is.

[Ute75]

(Sorry, I totally screwed up my reply.   Don’t know how to delete.)

[Milton Vanderslice]

You can’t delete, only edit.

[sacute]

There’s an old saying in sports and coaching, “It’s not the X’s and O’s, it’s the Jimmy’s and Joe’s.” How much is it the coaching versus the maturity, basketball IQ, chemistry and discipline of the players themselves? I’m not sure.

[TheJuggernaut]

UCLA was below .500 last year, add Ball and Leaf and all of a sudden Alford’s a great coach.

[PlainsUte]

It takes a lot of elements to be among the elite in college hoops, say among the top-3 in Pac-12, who are clearly above the rest. 

These include recruiting, teaching basketball skills, designing and teaching offense and defense schemes, pre-game strategy and planning and in-game strategy and clock management.   I think Coach Kodiak has got great skills and has made great strides in most of those.   We saw that with the steady improvement in W’s per season over his tenure, and even in team performance improvement during individual seasons.  Now, unfortunately the W’s per year seem to have hit a ceiling, and it almost seems this team regressed a bit during the season.  

The Utes do seem to come up short in the in-game strategy and clock management. As with Coach Whitt and the Red Zone offense, he has to recognize those shortcomings and make staff or training adjustments to improve those.  Set plays to inbound the ball and break full-court pressure are two obvious weaknesses of the team.

[Tony (admin)]

Either the team is too dense to grasp the coaching, or the coaching is not good.  Those are the only two possible explanations I can come up with.

Not knowing how to inbound the ball after a whole season is not acceptable.  Not knowing you need to make a 3 point shot when you’re down 3 with 2 seconds left is just plain dumb.  Not foulling in yesterdays game in the last few seconds, waiting 15 seconds, THEN fouling on the made shot is just plain dumb.

[loyter]

I’d agree with the idea that the team is inexperienced and has a low basketball IQ if it wasn’t the same pattern every damn year. We’ve gone through a lot of players and the same issues have persisted. What are the odds that we’ve recruited 6 years worth of dumb basketball players?

[Anonymous]

As Whit said, it’s all on the coaches. You either can’t coach or can’t recruit — possibly both.

[Milton Vanderslice]

It really bothered me that there was no screen help on the last play.  A pick would have really helped give a better look at the basket. 

[Guba]

It also requires the players buying in to what the coaches are teaching them. I had teammates in high school who were great athletes but for some reason ignored whatever the coaches tried to tell them despite repeated instruction, incentives, benching, yelling. Maybe it comes down to getting recruits who are willing to buy in. I am not ready to place full blame on the coaches. Players still have to execute. How many times have we seen Larry yell at a player “what were you thinking?” “why did you do that?” etc. This group seems to have difficulty working together and listening to the coaches. We’ve seen players not start and not play as a result. I think Utah has a great staff and they just need the players to buy in.

[sweetgrass]

the frustrating thing for me is the guard play. I don’t see the same type of improvements for the guards that I see in the big men. There is noticeable improvement in the big men – Poetl, and Jayce. I don’t see that in the guards or wings.

A Mark Jackson, Nick Jacobsen or Delon Wright on this years team makes a world of difference.

[Tony (admin)]

Do you attribute the improvement in Poeltl and Jace to coaching, or to just the fact that their coordination and minds are catching up to their body size?

[sweetgrass]

IDK, maybe you are right. It also might just be a work ethic issue?

[PlainsUte]

Coach, himself, said that he really misses Brandon Taylor, who was not a superstar, but must have had better leadership qualities/court smarts than any of the current guards.

[Rick]

Overachieve?  They were picked to finish 8th in the league by most and they finished 4th.  They had 10 new faces on the team and chemistry was lacking at times but I believe this team did overachieve.  I think you are just p**sed that they lost and need to place blame.

[Utah]

I really, really like this post. 

[PlainsUte]

Indeed, when I saw after the season ended last year the departures and reshuffling, and then realized how many newcomers there would be it was frightening.  Coach musta been frightened as well based on the OOC schedule he lined-up.

[Guba]

Add that 2 key players didn’t join the team until well into the season and only 2 players from last years squad returned for this season. They still got 20 wins which marks the 4th year in a row with 20 wins a feat only matched 2 times previous in the entire history of Utah Basketball! If they get 20 wins next year they will match Jack Gardner’s record from 1957-1962 and if they get another 20 wins after that they will match Majerus 1994-2000.

[Coreyc04]

I think you are dead wrong. Larry has built a solid program and over the last 6 years has overachieved in many different ways. 

We were picked 8th and finished 4th. We had a fine year. It’s just not the best year ever. That is ok. 

[Utes49ers]

Larry didn’t forget how to coach. This team was young, and its leaders were inconsistent (Bonam)’ foul-prone (Collette)’ or made mental mistakes (Kuzma). 2 returning starters, 2 major contributors only playing half the year, and the Utes take 4th in the conference… I’ll take it.
The loss yesterday sucks, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water…

[vcsg01]

I don’t remember Kuz making a lot of mental mistakes this year. He was great this year. Barefield on the other hand made quite a few bad decisions this year that hurt the team at the end of games. I wonder if that was really the plan yesterday for him to take it coast to coast for that horrible shot at the end.

[Tony (admin)]

Twice Kuz messed up the inbound at the end of the game. Remember he threw it all the way from under UCLA’s basket to INSIDE the 3-point area with no time left and we were down by THREE? We caught and shot, made it, with no time left… for TWO. Lost by one.

Later (can’t remember the game, maybe first Cal) he threw it away with a few seconds left when he could have thrown it to an open player to shoot for the tie or the win.