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This Won’t be Their Year
Blake Marshall
Long before the days of BCS busting and Power Five conferences, U fans had one thing to look forward to: basketball season. The Runnin’ Utes were the beacon of athletic hope for the university. Recently, they have regained some of that former glory, with appearances in the last two NCAA tournaments. In 2015, the Runnin’ Utes made it to a showdown within the Sweet 16 against the eventual champion, Duke University. Last season the Utes made it into the second round before being routed by the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Where will the Utes go this year? To me, it seems like the Utes can easily be picked into the Big Dance, based only on them being in a power conference with good competition. Being ranked in the top-64 is great, but the question becomes what happens when they get there? I see a first, maybe second round exit for the Utes this year. Here’s why.
The Utes always beat who they are supposed to beat and by large margins. Looking at last year’s schedule, they beat Delaware State by a final of 105-58. The trouble comes when they face some stiff competition. Physically, they look off, and I suspect it’s the mental game that brings them down. On paper, the Utes should have beaten Gonzaga in the second round of the tournament. With Jakob Poeltl and Brandon Taylor on the court, it should have been easy, especially considering that the TDS lost to the Bulldogs by three-point and four-point margins in a season where Utah wiped the floor with the boys from Provo.
The Utes are struggling to live up to the moment. When the game becomes bigger than them, they tend to get lost. Consider for a moment last year’s win/loss column. 27-9 is a respectable season by most standards, but the problem arises when one-third of your losses come to the same team. Oregon beat the Utes three times last season, including an 88-57 beatdown in the Pac-12 Championship game. If Utah has any hope of going far in March, they have got to get their heads right.
I’ve already mentioned Poeltl and Taylor, but they deserve mention again. Poeltl, the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar award winner and Wooden Award short-lister is now playing in Toronto for the Raptors, and Taylor is shining in Europe. The Utes are starting the 2016-2017 season with only two seniors and six freshmen on the roster. Age isn’t everything, but experience certainly does help when it comes to playing elite college basketball.
Does Utah have a chance to make it to March Madness? Of course they do — Coach K is a great recruiter and knows how to get the big men to excel. The fear comes when the tournament hits and a group that struggles mentally in big games, missing their top-two producers from a season ago, arrives. That is when I predict they will get a rude awakening. That’s when teams who they should beat on paper will come ahead and dominate.
Honestly, I hope I am wrong. I hope that Utah surprises me and makes an Elite 8 run. I hope that this is a reload instead of a rebuild year. I want nothing more than to see Utah excel in all sports. It may not be obvious right now as you are reading this, but I really am a homer. It fills my heart with joy to see football and basketball dominate in the same season, but unfortunately, I feel like we are still at least one year out from seeing this. But again, I hope I am wrong.
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Utah Never Disappoints
Jared Walch
As someone who has lived most of his life in Utah and who pays attention to the wide world of sports on a consistent basis, I feel like I may know a thing or two. Sports in Utah are perhaps the most puzzling and baffling of all. Teams in Utah seem to never hit where they are projected to — they either underperform or overperform in big ways.
Perhaps nowhere else is this exemplified than by the U. Having paid attention to this school for most of my life, I find it bizarre how Utah always seems to perform. This school has fielded teams that, more often than not, tend to overachieve. They do better than almost everyone projects them to. Just look at Utah’s football team going undefeated in two improbable, magical seasons, finished off by big wins against major programs. The men’s basketball team finished with an impressive 27-9 record last year, capped off by a second round appearance in the NCAA tournament.
So many of Utah’s teams tend to beat bigger schools with more talented players and more prestigious programs. Utah isn’t the biggest or most popular school out there, but somehow, the Utes keep getting it done. They consistently send players to the professional leagues who aren’t necessarily the best at their positions in the nation. Utah has great coaches, but none have the prestige of a Nick Saban or John Calipari.
All this is to say that the Utes are one of the few teams in the nation who consistently overachieve at nearly every point.
This is exactly why I believe the Runnin’ Utes will go deep into the NCAA tournament this year. Call it karmic justice or some strange type of mysticism that we haven’t discovered yet, but the Utes rarely let you down. They are going to do what they always do — win.
You might wonder how I can be so bold as to say this. After all, the last two years, the Utes sent two players into the NBA, both to the Toronto Raptors. Jakob Poetl was a terror down low who defended well and played with has back to the basket. He was a scoring machine when his game was on.
But, Poetl’s biggest problem was that he had almost no versatility in his offensive game. This was exploited painfully by Gonzaga in that second round.
Utah has two starters returning this season, with seven players who are upperclassmen. This team has a solid mix of exciting, young players and established veterans. That is quite possibly the best scenario for a coach to find himself in.
Speaking of coaching, I happen to believe that Coach K here at the U is one of the most underestimated coaches in the country. His schemes are terrific, continually exploiting the weaknesses of opposing teams. Say what you will about the decision to cancel the rivalry game with BYU, but there can be no doubt about his ability. Look what he did with Poetl. In his first season, Poetl mainly had a defensive presence down low — someone who could block shots and grab rebounds. He wasn’t known for his offense. One summer of hard work with this coaching staff, and Poetl became a top-10 NBA draft pick.
My point is that you can’t ever count out the Utes. These guys are the energizer bunny — they literally keep going. The Utes are like the little engine that could — you count them out one minute, but you will almost consistently not be disappointed when they come back to win. Never bet against the Utes. The have the talent and coaching to beat just about any team out there. That is why I believe that this men’s basketball team will go further this year than they did last year.
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