Utah Utes Basketball- Catching The Pac-12

The great fan piece on Utah Utes basketball I posted yesterday on our future (and if you haven’t read it, here is the link, go now).  As we saw this year our complete roster flush and rebuild did make us a better team from last year to this year.  Except in the mean time, the rest of the Pac-12 got even betterer.  So I thought it might be worthwhile to look at what we’re gaining and losing to see how we’re going to keep pace.

First off, Utah loses Jason Washburn, Jared Dubois and Cedric Martin.  Those three account for 27.7 PPG, 11.6 RPG and 6.1 APG.  To put that into more concrete terms, Utah loses 43% of our scoring, 34% of our rebounding and 40% of our assists.  To put that into perspective, the Boylen Utes lost around 80% of scoring and 90% of rebounding from year two to year three, so we’re losing a lot this year but not a total rebuild.

We’re bringing in JC players Delon Wright and Marko Kovacvic and freshmen Ahman Fields and Parker Van Dyke.  Brandon Miller is mission bound.

Also there maybe be more departures.  It is said we may bring in 2-3 more in the spring, which would mean 2-3 more losses (it’s widely assumed Aaron Dotson will be sent packing).  Also one has to wonder about playing time, even if Dotson is out, Dean, Taylor, Seymour and Tucker all play the same positions as Wright, Fields and Van Dyke and if you’re saying someone can play the three, they’re hoping to get Loveridge minutes there.  It wouldn’t be shocking to see Tucker forced out and Taylor and/or Seymour look for greener pastures.  There are only so many minutes to go around.

So what does all of this mean.  Those guys coming in plus improvement from the team has to replace all that scoring, rebounding  and assists just to maintain our position of 12th in the Pac-12.  Not only do we have to increase those numbers but at a faster pace than the rest of the Pac-12 is improving, just to make some headway.

Now almost everything about Larry right now has been much closer to science, as none of the numbers show much hope.  So if you have faith that somehow we’ll be in the mix in the Pac-12, I have to ask, show me the numbers as to how it will happen.