Mythbusters: Carlon Brown Edition…

It seems that I’ve spent a great amount of time between my old bl0g Crimson’s Corner and my new home here at Hoyo’s Revenge, part of the exciting Fansided.com network, debunking the myths that people have created about all things Jim Boylen.  Actually, they’re not really myths so much as faith promoting stories designed to help them keep their faith in Larry, because lord knows actual results aren’t going to do it.

Today, in honor of his return to the Huntsman Center we’ll look at the curious case of Carlon Brown.

Carlon was a Ray Giacolletti recruit and like many things with the Mark of Giac, Ute fans never really took to Carlon.  And he did have a real talent for missing spectacular dunks.  In fact several people including myself have suggested that the people at the Huntsman Center put together a highlight reel of Carlon’s missed dunks.  But I digress.

After two seasons in a solid supporting role, Carlon was giving a leadership roll and not ready for prime time would be a pretty accurate description.  Utah fans hated him, said he was selfish and on and on and wanted him gone.  And they got their wish.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to Larrytown, Carlon has gone from selfish jerk to misunderstood genius.  The (faith promoting) story goes something like, “I always liked Carlon and he never did anything wrong, he just hated the way Jim Boylen coached.”  The story then finishes with something like, “Look at what he’s doing at Colorado, that makes it clear Boylen had no idea what he was doings.”

The thing about looking at what he’s doing at Colorado, is that you can actually look at what he’s doing at Colorado.  So courtesy of the fine folks at espn.com, here is what he’s doing compared to his last season at Utah.

Carlon Brown     PTS      REB     AST
2009-2010          12.6       4.1      2.5
2011-2012           12.6       3.7      2.2

As we can see, Carlon is giving exactly what he gave at Utah.  In fact if you go to Carlon Brown’s statistics page, you’ll see that he is producing almost exactly what he did at Utah his junior year in nearly every way.

And that is not surprising, Carlon can be a contributor if you surround him with talent and don’t expect leadership out of him.

So while I realize this won’t change any of the faith promoting stories because people don’t like to change those no matter how “facts” fly in the face of them.  But I think its always worth putting the real story out there just so at least someone put it out there.

I assume this weekend, Carlon will go for 30 in a defeat of the Utes because that’s how Carlon rolls.  And all the Larry Lapdogs (shoutout to my friend Pat for coining that term) will use it as more “proof” that Boylen was an awful coach.  Then Carlon will promptly cough up a lung against a team they need to beat.

But like I said, at least the truth is out there.