Utah basketball woefully bad - worst team in the nation
by JazzyUte on Dec 3, 2011 4:24 PM MST
in Basketball
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PrintUtah basketball might not be winning many games, but at least they might have just won the title of worst division one basketball team in America.
I know that sounds remarkable with how many awful teams there are - but realize this: the Runnin' Utes lost, by 30, to a Fresno State team that had losses to the likes of Manhattan, UTSA and North Dakota State. Their 82-52 win mirrors the Bulldogs' 85-55 victory last month over Academy of Art.
Yes, Utah basketball gave Fresno about as much of a fight as what I can only assume is some ninny art school filled with a bunch of delicate minds.
This is a bigger mess than anyone could have ever imagined. Utah is flat out awful. This is the worst team in program history and one that, barring something miraculous, is probably going to end the year with one win.
I don't know how you spin that. I don't know how you come back from that.
I want to have faith in Larry Krystkowiak, but with each mounting loss, I feel we're slipping further and further behind where we need to be to climb out of this horrible hole.
My biggest concern is that, in the end, we'll be so damaged by this season that anything the coaching staff does from this point on will amount to nothing.
Because when you're losing to cellar-dwelling WAC teams by 30 points, you're in a whole helluva lot of trouble.
This is the easy part, folks. Imagine when the Pac-12 schedule starts. It ain't gonna be pretty.
Lord help us.
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Academy of Art vs. Utah would be a good game.
What’s sickening is that Blaine Taylor was available and willing to take the U of U job. Dr. Chris Hill did not even interview him. Dr. Hill had his mind made up probably a couple years ago that he would hire Coach Krystkowiak the first chance he got.
Dr. Hill should be taking a lot more heat for this than he is. In fact, I’d argue that an AD who drives a once proud basketball program into the ground like this should lose his job over it.
by The Moose's Whistle on Dec 3, 2011 4:41 PM MST reply actions
A mess that won't change until "Coach"k is gone.
This guy doesn’t know how to handle players-and they don’t trust him. The utes are on a fast track to the basement with k in the lead.
Snork!
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
Someone needs to step up and take responsibility for this mess
It is disgraceful that a program that was one of the best in the country in the 1990’s has collapsed to this state. For all the great things Dr. Hill has done, he needs to accept responsibility for this embarassment.
Well
I generally don’t like to blame an AD for a team’s performance, but in this case I’d have to agree. Now I know how BYU felt during their crappy basketball years. Not fun…
by Classless Ute on Dec 3, 2011 8:12 PM MST via mobile up reply actions
Academy of Art has a basketball team?
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. - R. Feynman
Bright side?
PAC not looking too stout so maybe there will be more w’s than expected
I should be working right now...
it's amazing how far UCLA as dropped
now 2-6 on the season. all 6 losses by double digits
i hope coach K realizes..
he’s not in the NBA anymore. being god awful won’t win us unibrow man in the draft next season..all it does is adds to the pain utes basketball fans have been feeling for a long time.
Are you kidding?
We’re getting absolutely worked over by bottom tier WAC teams. PAC 12 teams are much better than the WAC. Idaho State and Portland are our only hopes of a close game this season. This basketball team makes a good case for Roe v. Wade. It should have been aborted.
by The Moose's Whistle on Dec 3, 2011 10:43 PM MST reply actions
We were skeptical you belonged in the Pac-12 in football
Turns out you did belong.
But you guys totally suck in basketball. Which means you totally belong in the Pac-12 for that too. Welcome to the absolute suckage that is Pac-12 basketball.
Lord help us all.
We're awful right now in basketball...
We’ve been awful for the better part of the last eight years, with ’05 and ’09 the lone exceptions.
It’s tough to take and understand because, for so long, Utah basketball was the pride of our athletic program. We were the 8th winningest team in the 90s, led by two points with like five minutes remaining in the national title game in ‘98 and it’s all been, slowly and then rapidly, down hill since that defeat.
I had hopes this season would be a pleasant surprise, even though I didn’t expect much. But now it’s a nightmare. We’re getting worked by average teams and completely embarrassed by the good ones.
Once the Pac-12 slate rolls around, I expect to routinely lose by 40-50…maybe even 60…points. :/
Coach K may have made a mistake releasing players from scholarship
I’m not sure of the NCAA rulings, but it was more difficult to build a team from scratch than the staff had anticipated. IMO. This can’t be what they envisioned. With only three solid recruits coming in next year, I don’t see how it changes anytime soon. From growing up watching Tom Chambers and Danny Vranes, to Jimmy Soto and Josh Grant, to Van Horn and Andre Miller, then Bogut… A .600 record was a bad year. And now this? What the hell happened? This is shocking how bad we’ve become.
Aaron Dotson
Anyone know why Dotson hasn’t played this year?
redshirt
due to transferring from a D-1 school.
Love the Jazz, Utes, and BoSox.
bigbenstechnicalfoul.blogspot.com
by BigBenSportsGuy on Dec 4, 2011 9:02 AM MST up reply actions
Seriously flawed and stupid BS headline...
Yeah, the seasons is shot! Turn out the lights! 7 games in, lets gut ‘em. It’s bad and no one is really surprised…. but do you suppose we could wait until maybe halfway into the season at least before we throw them all under the bus? Comparing and cross referencing other conferences and who the powers are will be totally different at seasons end than pre-season guesses and polls. This “Worst Team in the Nation” crap is ridiculous. You haven’t posted a word about BB for many days… in your football funk evidently. I fully understand uninformed fans afar getting anxious and disturbed not knowing whats going on. Those with more knowledge could try to be half assed patient and not start more fires when the house is already burning.
Okay...
Let’s hear what I should be happy about with this team.
They’re getting blown out by bad competition. Their lone win is against a NAIA school. I get that the head coach is your brother and we’re all pulling for him, but it doesn’t change the fact this season is going south fast.
You’re right, the season ain’t over, but this team is going to have to make a gigantic leap to finish with even a couple wins. Right now, the last decent game they played was at home, a couple weeks ago, to Montana State…and they still lost.
This season is going to suck hard. It’s going to be ugly. We’re going to set a lot of bad historic records for this program.
Doesn’t mean I’m ready to fire Krystkowiak or that I don’t think he can turn it around, but as the losses pile up, it’s going to be more and more difficult to feel hopeful until, you know, the team actually gives us a reason to be hopeful on the court.
HOPEFULLY that happens later this season.
Well . . .
this season probably will be painful, I agree, and I expected that since we had no talent or morale. But if next year is even close to as bad, I’ll be less patient than I was with our last two coaching disasters.
I agree that we have to show a desire to be competitive.
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
Unhappy is one thing...
but you sound like we should all go jump off a high bridge or something!! Bad historic records? You can worry about that if you like. I don’t see the point in smacking down our team at this early juncture. There are TWENTY THREE GAMES LEFT for crying out loud and your talking like the season is winding down. Let’s reserve the gloom and doom for later. Then I’ll jump right along with you.
I think we should...
haha
I am depressed. I really thought we’d play better than we did. Fresno is no good. Sorry if you think I went overboard. I still like Coach Krysko and am cheering his success, regardless of how bad we look this season.
What about Gymnstics?
There’s always gymnastics . . .
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
This is bad, and worse than I thought it would be and that's saying something.
But sucking royally this season doesn’t doom us forever. We’ll get out of this. If we’re as bad as you say, we literally have nowhere to go but up.
I’m with all other fans who’s baffled at how the EFF our program has sunk so low, so fast. This is a level of bad that I thought was an impossibility even as a MWC team.
This season is shot. Next season will be better. I don’t expect to see much of anything to get excited until the season after next—at the soonest.
It’s dark times on the Hill. Somewhere in St. Louis a fat man is laughing. But we’ll get out of this. I don’t think this season is going to scare anyone away. We have who we have. We’ll be fine. There’s always talented guys who will want to play right away. We’ll get those guys in. I think LK knows how to coach. I’m only uncertain because I thought Boylen could, too. I’ve been burned too many times to care anymore. But we’ll be back.
My dad talked to Majerus a couple weeks ago.
He says we screwed the pooch when we didn’t go after Alex Jensen after Giacoletti left.
But I agree that Majerus is probably laughing his head off at the current state of our program.
I still remember the day he retired...
I was resting before class and saw it scroll across ESPN: UTAH BASKETBALL COACH RICK MAJERUS RESIGNS…
I was like, “WHAT THE WHAT?”
:/
Well . . .
. . .and Hill traded a name and program making coach for a couple duds. Hill is hit and miss, he’s like tossing a coin. I don’t think he can evaluate talent, I think he just gets lucky sometimes. Frankly if this coach is as bad as the last two? I want a new AD as well as coach.
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
My worry is that we lose recruits/commits
We are so bad, I legitimately see people decommitting. I can’t say that I wouldn’t after seeing how woefully bad we are so far this year.
If I had offers from better schools, I would probably be seriously considering those options.
I really hope we can pull off a couple wins. It may be an ugly ugly 1-win season. (0 wins if you look at the computer rankings).
We'll see, but I'm not worried about decommits
The guys we have committed know what they’re getting into. I’m a little nervous about Olsen. I’m a little gun shy with missionaries after the whole Sharp thing this summer.
put the brakes on........
if you didn’t go into this season knowing that this team would be historically bad, you were kidding yourself. Sure, we would all like to see them do better than this…..but this is what needed to be done. The program needed to be gutted.
Yeah, losing to Fresno by 30 is a joke. No one is going to debate that. Its beyond a joke. But we gotta be patient. Jim Boylen recruited a bunch of guys here that were here to play for HIM, not Utah. Now, those guys are gone. Larry K made some mistakes in the early parts of his tenure (i.e. not contacting Josh Sharp, not working hard enough to get Obrien to stay etc.) but he also signed Jordan Loveridge. And he got some decent talent in here. We have a solid recruiting class coming in. Better days are ahead.
Ride out this storm guys, just ride it out.
Love the Jazz, Utes, and BoSox.
bigbenstechnicalfoul.blogspot.com
This
And he had no time to recruit the 2011 class. The fact he even got guys to sign that late was impressive. As of now, a couple of those guys he signed won’t be on the team, just speculation on my part. Some of those guys just don’t have a whole lot of talent and he needed bodies quickly. Look at the roster right now, 2 JC transfers have started and a walk on starts and 3 true freshman are receiving a good amount of minutes. He doesn’t have the talent right now like he hopes
Didn’t help him Foster got hurt. He was going to be a huge part of the team.
The 2012 class isn’t even done yet. They already got 5 solid guys in Loveridge, Olsen, Hearithy, Seymour and the 7 ft Dixie transfer. Add that Glen Dean and Aaron Dotson will be able to play next year, this team should be a whole lot better. Just wait till next year folks.
by PhuckthePhillies on Dec 4, 2011 1:08 PM MST up reply actions
I don't know if anyone thought we would be 1-27 (or whatever) bad...
…where we don’t contend in any of our games, even against teams that will likely finish around .500 or worse.
agreed on that point
yeah, it has been dissappointing.
Love the Jazz, Utes, and BoSox.
bigbenstechnicalfoul.blogspot.com
by BigBenSportsGuy on Dec 4, 2011 3:45 PM MST up reply actions
Well . . .
If we’re that bad, let’s see how the baseball squad is shaping up shall we . . .
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
I do not care who the coach is
Utah Basketball has been in a downward spiral for a long time, coasting on some talent we signed based entirely on past glory—talent that has depreciated annually as we slid further down.
Krystkowiak may not be the guy, but there also is: 1) no talent, 2) no morale on our team from what I can seee.
I would say if he cannot improve us significantly by next year we can’t wait 4 years to pull the trigger.
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."--John Heisman
"I'm not upset about the U allegations," tweeted Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, who pitched at Miami. "I'm mad we didn't win anything while we were cheating."
Here's a time when we cougar fools are definitely not jealous!
This is what happens when you put all your focus into football. You get a good football team that gets you into one of the four best conferences in the nation—-for football, anyway. Pac-12 has even less basketball power (in my opinion,) than the MWC.
Now that I’m done gloating, I’d like to congratulate the Utes for salvaging a season. (Even though I was super ticked and surprised at the loss to the Buffs. Please kill them next year. Don’t know why, but I hate them.) When the Utes were playing Cal, I thought the season was over. Looking forward to the Utes having an explosive season next year, when you find a quarterback.
And good luck! Maybe your basketball will turn around like the football season did!
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Calling for Coach K’s job already??????
The guy came into a program without players, motivation, a chance to recruit before LOI day, dissected a scrap heap, and is trying to change the program from the ground up and people are calling for his job after the first quarter??
How many fans are at the games? Last time I was in Utah for a game there was like 1,000 people at best. Seems the fans need a little attitude adjustment just as much as our lazy, fat ass players did.
In all honesty Krysko’s first year starts next year. He’ll have his recruits and an offseason to establish his system.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as upset as the next guy about the piss poor performance from our team since Ole Giac dismantled the program and Boylen buried it. But no coach in the country has a bigger rebuilding job than Krysko. Let’s give him a season before we start hanging him from the rafters like a piñata. In all honesty he’ll probably be the guy that gets us back to .500 and on a stable foundation before he gets the axe setting the stage for a huge comeback under our next coach. Happens all the time in CFB. One guy destroys the program, another stabilizes it, and the caboose gets all the credit for the wins. (See, McBride v. Meyer. See also, Wulff v. Leach)
I’ll wait until at least December 2012 before I start screaming for his head.
Agreed
I am sad to see the state of U of U BB, but this was inherited, not created by coach K! I think that he needs a chance, but to start blaming him when boylen created this heap to begin with?
I say give him a season, he can own next season!!!
Even MORE time should be allowed
for Coach K to get the job done. I think he will build this program back where it should be. But it is going to take 3 years to at least get back to .600 ball. Let him get his own players with time to do real recruiting and not scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Fans need to come out to the games and support the team period. Utah fans are too bandwagon. This is the OUR Utah Basketball program and we need to support it even though it is going to be a year like none other in history.
Right on...
With 27 games pre-tourney to go, it’s a very cold shot to shun the team when they most need the support. They are executing plays and improvement is visibly measurable. I want to believe our learning curve while steep as it can be right now, might level out before the seasons over and we become reasonably competitive. The numbers in the seats will build consistantly but sooner would be a big shot to these guys. At least several are giving it their all and deserve that much.
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