Comments about ‘Utah Utes basketball: Runnin' Utes put it together in win over Central Michigan Chippewas’

No such thing as a bad win. Keep it rolling fellas and take care of Wright St. tomorrow!

One more to go this week, then we should get a good indication of how the team stacks up at SMU next week.

Nice win....things are looking up!

It's a long road back but coach K is putting in the work with sound philosophy.

Baby steps...

1. D3....win
2. D1....bad team...win....bad team loss.
3. D1....kinda bad teams...win.

Lots of kinda bad teams in front of us...boring no doubt but you can see a method to Coaches madness.

Sorry I don't buy it. Playing a bunch of inferior teams in a stacked home schedule is deceiving to Utah fans. They lost to Sacramento State, predicted to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big Sky Conference, which gives you an indication of where the Utes are in reality.
The Utes won't schedule in-state teams like Weber State, SUU, USU or UVU because they know what the outcome would be. This innocuous pre-season schedule that Chris Hill and Coach Krystkowiak have put together has done nothing but build a nice facade and false confidence in the players while keeping the fan base off their backs.
Reality will soon come knocking in December.

Pardon me if I'm not buying the "improved" narative until the Utes actually beat somebody.

At 3-1, the Utes have already lost a home game against one of the worst OOC schedules in the country, and Utah's win against Willamette, a D-III team, doesn't even count in the RPI rankings.

Real Time RPI Rankings (out of 346)

#337 Utah - SOS #342

Sagarin Ratings (out of 347)

#213 Utah - SOS #339

I would suggest keeping things in perspective but I highly doubt utah "fans" will do that.

So Duck and Ufan...

If your program was in shambles and you fire 10 out of 12 players and bring in new ones. Do you play a bunch of scums and use these "games" as practice + a little? Before you go into a league schedule that is really hard this year? Or, do you schedule Kentucky, Duke, UNC, Texas, Ohio State, Indiana and then play the PAC 12 schedule.

One seems more logical to me than the other.

Or how about a team that plays Notre Dame, Florida State (and loses) and then plays in a conference that is full of Willamettes?

Pot vs. kettle perhaps?

I still think the Utes will only lose 2 or 3 non-conference games, and only win 2 or 3 conference games. There is a possibility that Utes could win zero conference games.

Very imprressed with Bachynski. Wish BYU had picked him up when they had the chance.

The WCC is conference that includes Gonzaga and St. Mary's - those games will be the measure of the Cougars.

The measure of the Utes will be their improvement over the year, not in wins and losses.

Agree OC fan!

@indycrimson

If it is me I wouldn't schedule all of those powers but I w2ould definately not schedule that laughers utah scheduled. But all I said was utah "fans" should try to keep things in persepctive. Their record of 4-1 is basically meaningless other than the 1 loss. That loss says more about them than the 4 "wins".

Duckhunter

Nobody is worried about Utah's record. We all know Utah is still far away from being a tournament team. Everybody is focused on seeing the team improve, and they obviously have.

Last year at this time all Utah did was run isolation plays to Jiggy and try to run the clock in hopes of keeping it somewhat close at the end of the game. This year the team is moving the ball, scoring, and has a good foundation to build around with Loveridge and Bachynski. Not to mention Utah is playing the game and has been putting [bad] teams away about halfway through the second half, which is something they could not do last season.

It's going to be a long road back, but I think we're heading in the right direction.

indycrimson

Is "challenging" yourself against a bunch of high school teams really going to help prepare U for games in a power conference?

Sorry, but dispite your hyperbole, NOBODY in the WCC is even close to as bad the D-III and NAIA teams Utah bookended their pre-season schedule with - Willamette and College of Idaho - teams that are so far off the charts that neither game will count in calculating Utah's RPI or SOS.

9th in football; 12th in basketball; last or next to last in every other men's sport - the Utes certainly haven't given us any evidence that they actually belong in the "conference of champions".

@two for

That sounds good but I have to disagree. Not about utah having better talent or even that they have or haven't improved, just that the current competition does not in anyway give us evidence one way or the other. Last year they were bad, and their schedule wasn't very good, but it was a long ways from being as bad as this years schedule. They were playing far better teams last year at this time.

The schedule they are playing this year doesn't tell us a thing about them, even last year they could have beaten most of the teams they are playing this year.

Now the pac12 is no basketball powerhouse but it will at least be a better indicator of improvement than what they are currently doing. If they improve their pac12 record, or at least compete better in those games, then I think we will be able to say they have improved, but it won't matter if they beat every bad team they play in the preseason because it won't tell us a thing.

Duckhunter

I honestly don't think last year Utah would have been 4-1 with the schedule this year's team has played. We started off with a loss to Adam's State and a three point win over San Diego Christian...

@Two For Flinching

You may be right about that, we'll just have to see how it turns out as the season progresses. I just think they should have scheduled a little bit better quality of teams.

This isn't a perfect anaolgy but it is close enough. My youngest son played on 2 basketball teams last year. One of the teams he played on was pretty average. He wanted to play on it because it was composed of many of his friends. They started out playing in a "B" league but it was obvious they were going to dominate that league so the coach moved them up to the "A" league. In the "A" league it was much tougher and they didn't win much but they became much better for playing the tougher competition.

The other team he played on was one of the top in the state for his age. He was about a middle tier kid on that team to start the season although in fairness to him that meant he is a really good player. But competing against the kids on that team for playing time, and against the very best teams made him better.

Continued from above:

I'm just a firm believer that playing against better competition makes you a better player and team. Playing weak opponents does not make you better, it takes good competition to raise your level of skill whether it is individually or as a team. I don't think utah is improving because they are playing bad teams. They may be better because they have raised their talent level some but playing a bunch of bad opponents isn't helping them IMO. I think it is giving them false confidence.

With my kids two teams it was apparent. When the average team he played on moved up they thought they were going to be good because they had beaten up on the "B" league teams. They got a rude awakening but by the end of the year they had inarguably improved. The really good team he was on also improved because the games were tough, the teams were tougher and harder to beat. They had to work hard to beat them and when they did their confidence increased in a real way.

Just my opinion.

Those are fair points.

Utah will play tough teams though, just not in the preseason. Like you said conf. play will be the real barometer of how much, if any, this team has improved. Since Utah still is not in a position to be a contender in conference I think it's alright to have this kind of schedule just to teach this team how to win. Assuming this kind of schedule doesn't become a regular thing.