"Utah Basketball is obviously back. -Utah Message Board GuyThere is no chance of a positive Ute basketball review from him [Hoyo’s Revenge] – Guy on TwitterFollowing a thrilling overtime victory over Colorado last Thursday night, Arizona took the day off today against Utah and, only because it was Utah, were nevertheless able to come out with a three point victory. Consider the Wildcats lucky…again. -ZonaZealots.com"
I took a day to ponder the meaning of yesterday’s game against Arizona because I wanted to be fair. Because I was happy, angry and wildly frustrated at the end of the Arizona game. Except according to a great many Ute fans only one of those emotions is ok. And in fact the sentiment that Utah basketball is obviously back might be the one I disagree with the most.
But lets start with what I liked.
And no place is better than Jason Washburn. No guy has taken more crap in a five year career that this guy. And now he’s asserted himself as what might be the best player on the team. It’s a shame his 34 and 27 over the weekend goes 0-2 and he has no chance at player of the week. But his play has been huge.
Jordan Loveridge is a freshman and he goes away at times, but he also came to play in a big game yesterday. If Washburn isn’t the best player on the court for Utah it is clearly Loveridge.
And this team didn’t fold up shop against Arizona. That was a nice thing to see. Because they could have twice.
Is that positive enough.
Now to the next question. Is this team back.
No, No a thousand times No and if you actually said that you need to look at yourself. Look, I get that you want to rah rah this team, but lets don’t pretend we’re watching Majerus and the final four Utes out there. And there is one big glaring reason why.
TEAMS THAT ARE BACK ACTUALLY WIN GAMES. They win games other than when their famous previous coach passed away. Don’t forget last year we played Arizona close, in fact we led almost all the way. What the hell did it mean other than we went on the Oregon road trip and got gang raped.
One thing will signal that we’re back, winning basketball games against good teams consistently. We have one win against a good team and it happened after Majerus died.
The thing is, I don’t say that to rain on everyone’s parade, I say it because if we get swept at home this week, and lets face facts, that is entirely possible, anyone listening to you idiots screaming that the national title is just around the corner is going to be soured very quickly.
Finally for the theory from my friends at ZonaZealots.com, doesn’t he kind of have a point. I mean, I’ve seen Arizona play quite a bit living here in Tucson, and they looked kind of flat after that wild game with Colorado. It was at least part Arizona throttling down when they got those 10 point leads. I don’t think it’s out of line to mention that.
At the end of the day, am I happy, well kind of but also angry and frustrated. I’m angry as I mentioned yesterday at Jared Dubois being the guy to take (and miss) all of our game winning shots. We’re down one, why not run a play that might have Loveridge going to the hole or Washburn getting a touch.
And as I’ll talk about I’m frustrated with our style of play.
I think that is a fair way to feel right about now.