Yesterday we looked at the just completed season of Utah Utes basketball and asked the question, did we really see enough to say winning is around the corner. So it seems appropriate to see what we will have on the court around the corner. So here is what is returning.
Seniors: Glen Dean G, Aaron Dotson G, Renan Lenz F
Juniors: Dallin Bachynski C
Sophomores: Jordan Loveridge F, Jeremy Olsen F, Justin Seymour G, Dakari Tucker G, Brandon Taylor G, Harry Whitt C
New Comers: Delon Wright Jr G, Marko Kovacevic Jr C, Parker Van Dyke FR G (Note: Brandon Miller is going directly on his mission)
But now comes the moment you’ve all be waiting for, who else will be departing from the team. Now let me say this, I’ve both heard from multiple sources these folks are out and if you look at how playing time shook out, it’s not hard to guess.
Three players will be almost certain not to return, their names are Glen Dean, Aaron Dotson and Justin Seymour.
If you can count, you can see the Utes have a whole lot of guards and not a lot of guard minutes to go around. If you add in that Loveridge will be striving to make the move to the three, you can see where the log jam is. The Utes didn’t bring in Delon Wright and ask Parker Van Dyke to play so they won’t see the court. And considering Dean lost his job to a guy on the roster and two more guys who play his position are coming in, well that one is easy to see.
One interesting plot point however, is to get Dean to come from Eastern Washington, this staff promised him admission to medical school. So we’ll see how that goes.
I’ve been told the staff is just utterly unhappy with Aaron Dotson and again we’ve got a ton of guys who play the same position, so where will his minutes come from.
As for Justin Seymour, I think it’s the same thing. We saw Tucker get the playing time at the end of the season. Seymour seemed to fall out of favor after his suspension for being late for curfew at the Washington game. Some guys have to go.
Finally, and I’m just working off of my own thoughts here and people say I’m crazy. But if you’re Brandon Taylor, don’t you have to look at moving along. We’ll talk about lineups tomorrow, but we’ve got two guys in to play the position you started at. That would communicate that the staff has concerns. Now if your Taylor do you spend your career at Utah backing up other points or do you go somewhere that you could play big minutes, as he could at say a WCC school.
And if you’re Utah aren’t you a little concerned about a 5’11” PG. Just food for thought.
Tomorrow we’ll look at what some lineups might look like.