Utah v. Cardinal

[Top Ute]

I think if we had even a sliver of continuity coming into the year, we would have seen a better start. The loss of Foster made that problem even worse. The players seem to have a better understanding of what each of his teammates is doing on both ends of the court. I think tightening up the rotation has helped, but the drawback is tired legs down the stretch. I hope an 8th guy will pick it up and earn some playing time.

That's evidence that Larry is getting smarter. It's hard for him to demand and expect everyone's best when he was giving solid minutes to players who didn't deserve them. Can you imagine where we'd be vs. Stanford if Hines was splitting minutes with Odunsi?

I don't think losing by 30 to Weber, Fresno, CSF and Fullerton was part of the process, or done by Larry's design. If it was, he's certainly breaking the mold. Now it's entertaining to think what games would be like if Larry had the opposition's talent to work with, and Dawkins had ours, for example. Now Larry's got to get those players and level the talent gap.

[cougjunkie]

This is the first time in three years we've seen a team improve. In fact, the norm was for the team to get steadily worse. The Colorado slaughter would have been a killer.

How do you not improve when you lose 73-33?

[U-Ute]

Glen Dean is playing

Who is Alexander Rickets? Is he one of those guys who tried out last week?

Ricketts played in the Bahamas. I believe he is a walk on.

[LA Ute]

How do you not improve when you lose 73-33?

It's possible. Mainly in nightmares, but sometimes nightmares become real...

[U-Ute]

I'm getting cautiously encouraged by what this team is doing. Krystko seems to have the attention of this team, something Boylen was never able to do. So I'm starting to get some confidence in him.

Defensively, they are working hard and it seems to be showing. Although it is hard to tell if our defense is being more effective or if the PAC-12 is really that lousy. I'm not sure yet, but it is entirely possible.

Offensively, I think I remember Krystko saying recently that they still haven't really worked on it, so I give us a bit of a pass on that. Although I still don't think we have anyone on this team that can shoot, and we're undersized/under-tough (yeah, I just made up that term on the spot) on the inside .

tl;dr: we still can't shoot a lick, but at least we're playing some defense.

U-Ute

[Tone Loc]

I really can't believe how bad Pac 12 basketball is right now. On college basketball live they spent a few minutes on it. Both Jason Williams and Andy Katz agreed that it was a 1 bid league at this present time. Its really hard to judge the utes and their improvement because its such a cluster right now. Both teams were a combined 6-26 from the foul line. That has to be some type of record.

Do they look better? Yes, but as soon as they got into league play the level of competition dropped off. Baby steps I guess.

[LA Ute]

I really can't believe how bad Pac 12 basketball is right now. On college basketball live they spent a few minutes on it. Both Jason Williams and Andy Katz agreed that it was a 1 bid league at this present time. Its really hard to judge the utes and their improvement because its such a cluster right now. Both teams were a combined 6-26 from the foul line. That has to be some type of record.

Do they look better? Yes, but as soon as they got into league play the level of competition dropped off. Baby steps I guess.

The last thing we are thinking about as Ute fans is the strength of the PAC-12 in hoops. For now we just want to be a good PAC-12 team. And the PAC-12 will be back.

EDIT: This is a very good article on the PAC-12's current weakness in basketball. And remember:

The Pac-12 has 50 players on NBA rosters, second only to the 61 players produced by the Atlantic Coast Conference. UCLA has 15 players on NBA rosters, most of any college team.

There's a foundation to build on.

[il Padrino Ute]

This team has played so much better since Larry let the players know that none of them are indispensable when he had open tryouts for the team.

The missed FTs hurt last night. One could conclude that they were the reason the Utes lost. I haven't looked for the stats, but it seems that Utah's FT shooting has been down since the Majerus days. Those Utah teams were always one of the better FT shooting teams in the country and I doubt they would have missed the FTs last night.

[SteelBlue]

The missed FTs hurt last night. One could conclude that they were the reason the Utes lost.

The combined missed free throws has to have been some kind of a record, I'm too lazy to check. Oddly, it happened on a night when in the NBA a record was set for combined free throws made with the Bucks and Pistons going 41/41. Crazy.

Edit: Just saw another headline from hoops last night. Dwight Howard set a record for most free throw attempts in a game with 39, (he hit 21).

[TripletDaddy]

Im hopeful that Larry has a successful season next year and then Utah gives him a really long and lucrative extension.

[Top Ute]

The combined missed free throws has to have been some kind of a record, I'm too lazy to check. Oddly, it happened on a night when in the NBA a record was set for combined free throws made with the Bucks and Pistons going 41/41. Crazy.

Edit: Just saw another headline from hoops last night. Dwight Howard set a record for most free throw attempts in a game with 39, (he hit 21).

Was thinking the exact same thing last night.