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This will hopefully be short and sweet, mostly because the week that was has been the complete opposite of “short and sweet” for pro and college hoops fans in Salt Lake City.
First of all, the Jazz have not played this poorly on defense in about 10 months. The offense is playing well enough on paper, as they scored 105, 114, 110, and 111 points in consecutive games. But there is something critically wrong when a team coached by Jerry Sloan scores that well and still goes 0-4 for the week.
We discuss this subject ad nauseam in the podcast, so I won’t say much more about it. Wednesday night they will be in Michigan to take on the Detroit Pistons, and I don’t much like their chances. In fact, they have four rough games (three on the road and one at home) until our next podcast, and I am starting to wonder if they will tack another 0-4 onto their record. Although, to be fair, I am a notorious Jazz pessimist so you should probably take anything I write with a grain of salt.
The University of Utah men’s basketball team continues to lose. Well, because the posting of this came a day later than expected, let me amend this slightly. After losing six straight and nine of their last eleven games to such college hoops powerhouses as Albany (at the Huntsman Center, incidentally), the bottom-dwelling Utes went ahead and upset #13 ranked Air Force last night. I just can’t figure this team out. I suppose the youth factor is significant, and there have been a few close conference losses, but their record stinks and they have lost big to bad teams. They also happen to be 2-0 against ranked opponents this year, with Washington State at #21 in this week’s ESPN poll (although WSU was not ranked when they played). I have no explanation for this. If you have any reason why this should make sense, please let me know at nate@utahsportscast.com. I would appreciate the peace of mind.
The BYU men’s basketball program is looking pretty good of late, although they dropped a tough game to UNLV at the Thomas & Mack Center. This came after a decent win over TCU in the Marriott Center, both of which brought their overall record to 12-5, 2-1 in the conference. They also won last night against Wyoming at home, as long as I am updating information. This makes them 13-5, 3-1, obviously, and looking strong. We have both been impressed with the great play of Keena Young, who is picking up the slack for the disappointing Trent Plaisted.
When the time came to put together our top three in Utah for this week we ran into a few snags. First, nobody on the Utah Jazz really was rising to the top, although Mehmet Okur was considered, along with Carlos Boozer. Both players have had decent numbers, but Okur had a few poor games and Booz was disappearing in the fourth quarter. Nobody on BYU really stood out, and we just laughed at the idea of putting a Utah player on the list. Eric Weddle from Utah’s football team was formally named a Consensus All-American this week (only the third Ute to earn that honor), and that was certainly worth mention. But, we decided to point out some of the standout athletes who compete for the women’s teams. They certainly don’t get the attention they deserve in our podcast/blog, and there were some impressive performances:
3) Morgan Warburton (Utah Basketball)
2) Jennie Keele (BYU Basketball)
1) Kristina Baskett (Utah Gymnastics)
If you want further information on why we selected these three, I would direct you to the podcast. I don’t want to spoil everything with the blog, after all.
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nate@utahsportscast.com
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