I’ve been very busy lately, and haven’t had the time to put into doing some Ute blogging.

My apologies. I’ll get back to it in the fall when football season starts.

It was a tough loss yesterday but still a great game. For the first time since Bogut left I’m excited about our prospects and the potential I’m seeing in this team.

The Good

First I’m very exited about having a center who can actually move, catch, shoot and most of all, walk and chew gum at the same time. Not only that, we have TWO. Very promising.

Tillie made a manly rebound and put back yesterday in action unlike last year. He’s much more assertive and strong down low this year. He’s more beefy. This is good.

Brown was a bit of a head case last night but did come through in the clutch with the basket to tie with 7 seconds left. But had he not missed three FT’s in a row, we may not have needed to go into OT to win the game.

Henderson has the potential to be REALLY good. This kid as fire and can shoot, even though he went a bit cold in the 2nd half yesterday. And did anyone see him SKY for that put back attempt which didn’t count? I had NO idea he could jump like that.

Watkins is a MAN. I like this guy. He is tough. He was too scared to shoot from outside last night and that obviously isn’t his strength. But I’m liking this guy.

Team rebounding, even against some tough teams, is really getting better. This doesn’t suck.

The Bad

Freethrows. We make ‘em, we win. That sucked yesterday. I long for the days when we led the nation in FT%. I guess it helped to have Van Horn shooting most of them.

Drca. Yes this guy has raw talent. There is no doubt. He can make passes that nobody else can. But he is out of control. I’ve never heard the Ute home crowd, thousands of them, cry “nooooooooooooo” when I guy gets the ball in the waning seconds of a close game until Drca came around.

The Future

The future for Utah basketball is bright. I feel this for the first time in years.

My pal Shane flies small planes from SLC to Price and Moab every day. He flew me over Arches National Park this summer. That was amazing.

He shot a pic of RES from above and I had to share it:

In my not so unbiased opinion UTAH WAS THE BEST & #1 TEAM IN THE COUNTRY LAST YEAR. This year however, that is not the case. Utah lost a ton of great players and coaches. We’re 7-1 right now, only loss by 7 to Oregon on their home field. Oregon has turned out to be pretty good.

But having watched every Ute home game from the 25th row, and all the road games, I think TCU has the potential to slaughter the Utes this time around. Our coach is a defensive guy, so we may be able to hold TCU’s offense down a bit. But offensively we’re not close to where we need to be and we’ll be starting a FRESHMAN QB for his first college road game of his career. The Utes have also been plagued with fumbles this season. At one point vs Air Force, we had more fumbles than 1st downs. If we do that against TCU we won’t win like we did vs some lesser teams. Not by a long shot.

It all points to TCU in my eyes even though I’m as big a Ute fan as there can be. But that’s why they play the games. You never know until it is over.

And I also must say how thrilled I was that TCU crushed my ever hated byu. I really like TCU and root for them any game except when they play my Utes.