Feb. 28, 2013; Provo, UT, USA; Brigham Young Cougars guard Tyler Haws (3) defends against the Gonzaga Bulldogs during the first half at the Marriott Center. Mandatory Credit: Douglas C. Pizac-USA Today Sports
Well last night wasn’t exactly glorious basketball. But many of you may be surprised to learn, it doesn’t concern me. If you people read yesterday, you know that I said it could very well be sloppy. Now I didn’t think it would be down 15 at one point and down 9 at the half sloppy, but it worked out so that’s all good.
So now we move on to The Team Down South.
It’s time we win this game.
Two years ago we had no talent, nothing was expected. Last year we had something more but it was still pretty bad and the Utes played them close. This year we have actual players. If we’re improving it means we win this game. Mika, we have a couple of bodies to throw at him. Haws, Carlino, we have athletic defenders to throw at them.
It’s time for Utah basketball to win again.
We’ll talk about the matchups more tomorrow and Friday.
But a couple of pieces of news on the scheduling front. Last night, for reasons only known to him, Dave Rose claimed that scheduling Utah v BYU hoops for the future had hit a snag and the annual game might end. Of course the BYU mouthpieces in the Salt Lake Media ran with this (Greg Wrubell, Jay Drew among others). BYU fans became predictably faux enraged and oddly several Ute fans joined them. It seems Ute fans have forgotten that BYU is generally an utter pain in the ass to deal with. In fact part of the reason the football game left for two years was BYU refusing any accommodation to assist with our Pac-12 scheduling complications. BYU wants to play they claim, but they won’t do anything to actually make that happen other than to show up at a date and time of their choosing.
And we found out today from Tony Jones that it was all pretty much nonsense.
In much better news, Utah has booked a one and done in Kansas City with the Kansas Jayhawks. I’ve been told that Larry and Dr. Hill have taken a lot of heat from serious boosters about this schedule (as they should have). And this is a step towards fixing that. It would still be nice for the fans who show up to the Huntsman Center to get to see one OOC team whom they’ve heard of. But I suppose this is all baby steps.
Utah has also agreed to play in a tournament in Puerto Rico in 2015.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more TDS thoughts.
GO UTES