Saturday, November 09, 2013

Utah 128 Evergreen State 44

As expected, Utah blew out another over-matched team.  The Geoducks put up little resistance.  I liked that Utah played hard, did not get sloppy (for the most part) and play down to the level of its competition, shot better from the line (36-48), and was able to spread its minutes around.

I am still concerned about the post play.  Even against a much smaller team, Utah was not able to dominate in the post to the extent I would like.  This will be a problem in conference play if it does not improve.  I hope it will get better when Marko Kovacevic returns from injury.  Jason Washburn's post play improved greatly under Coach Krystko.  So I am optimistic that Utah's current bigs will continue to progress.

I have heard some complain about Utah scheduling a team like Evergreen State.  I am sympathetic to these concerns.  But as a coach, I completely understand the logic behind it.  Utah is still rebuilding. Progress has been swift and the team is light years ahead of where it was two years ago.  But it still has a ways to go. Games like these are necessary to establish confidence, to give bench players game experience, and to see how the kids respond to game situations.

Next week's game against UC Davis will obviously be much tougher.  I am especially interested to see how Utah decides to defend against Davis' Corey Hawkins.  Hawkins father is Hersey Hawkins who had an excellent NBA career.  He played for the Sixers, Hornets, Sonics, and Bulls in the Nineties and scored over 14,000 points during his NBA career.  The Aggies are coached by Jim Les, who some may remember from his time with the Utah Jazz and a few other NBA teams.  Coach Les and Hersey Hawkins played together at Bradley University.  The UC Davis game will tell us a lot more about this Utah team and I am excited to see how the kids play.


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