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Oct 21, 2014
10:55:21pm
They return the most starters on a team that went 9-9 in conference, and
lost by 12 in the first round of the NIT to 4th place WCC team SMC.

They had a couple of nice upsets last season, most notably of BYU and UCLA. But Utah was not a great team.

They whimpered to a close to finish the season, losing 3 of their last 4, including a complete meltdown (to the tune of 71-39) against Arizona in the PAC-12 quarters, and then they were whipped by SMC in the first round of the NIT.

I'm not saying that Utah can't be good this year. They have 3-4 nice players, a couple of which are really good. But they have proven little, other than that they could get over the hump against BYU for the 2nd time in 13 tries.

Utes, and Cougars that fear them, need to measure their expectations. IMO, Utah is probably better than they were last season, and they will likely get a tournament invite, unless they stumble too often against an OOC that is tougher than they have seen since at least 2010-11. The past couple seasons, special K has coaxed these guys along with an OOC that would make the Sun Belt Conference slate look like murderers row. In 2013-14 their OOC featured Evergreen State (I'm a rabid basketball fan from Washington and had no idea that this tiny school even fielded a team), UC Davis, Grand Canyon, Lamar, Savannah State, Ball State, Idaho State, Texas State, and St. Katherine. They played exactly one team that played in either the NCAA or NIT (BYU). This year, they play SDSU, Wichita State, BYU, Kansas, UNLV, and BYU. We'll see if their fragile confidence (no big stage experience, because no one has ever expected anything from them before) can hold together.

I'm not saying they will fail. But I'm saying that those who are predicting them to be great are probably being over optimistic. Time will tell whether they can finally put together a nice season.
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Originally posted on Oct 21, 2014 at 10:55:21pm
Message modified by Gentleman Stan on Oct 21, 2014 at 10:56:13pm
Gentleman Stan
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