Here I go again, beating the dead horse.
I wrote Tuesday that Utah fans were fortunate that head coach Jim Boylen didn’t receive an “offer he couldn’t refuse.”
As much as I hate to say it, one day soon, he will.
Everyone knows the gist of the story.
Here came Boylen, the vivacious Michigan native, who has won NBA championships as an assistant and coached under two of the best coaches in college basketball history at Michigan State in Jud Heathcote and Tom Izzo.
He has been Utah’s savior.
His tenacious attitude and stern approach to reviving a program has worked to perfection.
So, is it ironic that two nationally prominent programs such as Arizona and Memphis came a-callin’ once options began to flounder?
Meh.
I will repeat myself again, because lately, it seems as though I have been doing a lot of that.
Boylen is a big fish in a tiny pond. People know this guy. He is no Ray Giacoletti. No way should he be mentioned in the same sentence as that impostor.
Boylen has been to the top of the mountain. He’s seen what it’s like up there. The view is marvelous. Trust me, he’s told me.
This is where things get a bit messy and confounding.
Yes, Boylen is the penultimate Utah Man.
He loves that Chris Hill and the thousands of Runnin’ Utes fans have backed him wholeheartedly during his first head coaching job. The guy loves this place, this community, this program so much that it has brought him to tears on more than one occasion.
As I watched Roy Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels punctuate a championship season on my couch with my T.G.I. Friday’s chicken fajita frozen skillet dinner, a troubling thought popped into my head.
If Utah would’ve played the likes of Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Tyler Hansbrough this season, it would’ve been a sure-fire nightmare.
The last time the Utes scared opponents was 2005. Andrew Bogut dominated every team and he was surrounded by athletic swingmen who could score when necessary. However, they were not championship material. Boylen is. Just read the guy’s résumé. It speaks for itself.
It’s just the harsh reality that Utah has become his first stepping stone8212;Boylen is only 43 years young. Utah needs to come to grips with the situation at hand. Boylen is Urban Meyer reincarnate.
Hill scored another prized possession that slipped through the woodwork for so many years. Although Meyer split after two seasons at the U and a 21-1 record to go along with a BCS bowl victory, Boylen has some work to do here. He knows that if he builds it, they will come in waves.
He turned a crew of jumbled characters into I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass winners in 24 months.
With one of the best recruiting classes hitting the U in God-knows-how-long next year, it will be a team mainly consisting of Boylen’s recruits.
He will get in his victories. He will shock big names like Gonzaga and LSU in the next few years. He will get back to the tournament and make some noise.
2012. That’s the year the Mesoamerican Mayan calendar stops. Ditto for Boylen’s time with the Utes. It’ll be a hectic and sensational next three years before the ride stops. The countdown starts now.
Chris Kamrani