Will Going Pac-12 Hasten or Delay Boylen's Departure?

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

If there had been a playoff 3 years ago, the Utes may have had an NC.

They sure looked awful good.

The Beavers would have one also though, so let's not change the past.

[SeattleUte]

If anything this would extend it. It's hard to recruit good OOS basketball players to Utah. It's an urban game popular in the AA culture. Boylen's not a bad recruiter and this gives him the chance to ramp up recruiting. I haven't given up on him.

[Top Ute]

Boylen deserves two years to recruit ...

... under what are far more enviable circumstances than he has in the MWC. And he's enjoying those circumstances now, while still playing in the MWC for a year. He'll have two years to recruit for his first team in Pac-10 play, and he'll need it because we have a ton of seniors leaving after 2011-12.

I think Utah improves this year by 3-5 games, and even with a dropoff in the initial year of the Pac-10, it's hard to imagine getting rid of Boylen then (unless it's a catastrophic tank job, or you're guaranteed a significant upgrade by a candidate who wants the job badly). I think he's here through 2013, minimum.

[LA Ute]

Recruiting will be the PAC-10 difference. He won't have that excuse anymore.

To me the biggest relief is that the job is much more attractive now. IMO the Utah hoops HC job has not been an entry-level position for many years. We should hire only head coaches with good track records. This time Hill had to settle for Boylen and give him his first head coaching job. We have worried that if Boylen fails we will have nowhere else to go. That worry is pretty much gone now, I think.

[SeattleUte]

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...ner-jim-boylen

[falafel]

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...ner-jim-boylen

Interesting.

Utah has been a national hoops power before. The school's conference affiliation hasn't done much to dampen the football team's success. And plenty of mid-major-ish schools -- Gonzaga, Xavier, Butler, conference mates BYU and New Mexico, among others -- have been able to recruit top talent and compete at the highest levels of college hoops without a major conference affiliation.

[LA Ute]

Interesting.

Every coach since Jack Gardner has griped about recruiting to Utah, including Big Rick. "Top talent?" Who is the writer kidding? Anyway, the excuse is gone now.

[falafel]

Every coach since Jack Gardner has griped about recruiting to Utah, including Big Rick. "Top talent?" Who is the writer kidding? Anyway, the excuse is gone now.

Did they move the university to SoCal?

[beelzebabette]

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...ner-jim-boylen

Sounds like Boylen is trying to reset the timeclock on when "his recruits" will start to yield results to "his Pac-10 recruits." I can't blame him for trying to buy time.

[LA Ute]

Did they move the university to SoCal?

[LA Ute]

Sounds like Boylen is trying to reset the timeclock on when "his recruits" will start to yield results to "his Pac-10 recruits." I can't blame him for trying to buy time.

Doubtful, IMO. He's pretty low on the guile scale.

[Donuthole]

Interesting.

That's pretty rich. SU citing a source which ponders why Utah isn't on the same level basketball-wise as BYU. Doesn't he know Utah is only one season removed from being the MWC champs?

[Katy Lied]

He's pretty low on the guile scale.

Agreed. One of the nicer things about him.

I'm interested watching Carlon's progress at Colorado. Will he do better at CO's trainwreck of a program than he did at Utah's trainwreck of a program?

[LA Ute]

That's pretty rich. SU citing a source which ponders why Utah isn't on the same level basketball-wise as BYU. Doesn't he know Utah is only one season removed from being the MWC champs?

We'll be back.

It just occurred to me that Utah and BYU may nor play home and home in hoops, which stinks. There was a time when USU and Utah played 2 every year. Maybe we'll do that

[U-Ute]

He is referring to Majerus's comment after someone asked him about recruiting after the 1998 championship game: "Salt Lake didn't move any closer to LA."