ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


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CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


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I think Smith was their second or third choice. I think they felt some pressure to get it done to save face.

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


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Maybe more desperate than lazy. Didn't their first couple of targets reject them? Word like that gets around and can cause trouble for hiring any quality coach as doubts start to circulate about the job. I think the U overpaid to get a coach, but probably had to given the situation. If Smith doesn't work out then it will spell real trouble for the bball program there going forward.

And yes, I'm glad USU has an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and look for the best candidate, even if us fans get really impatient with the process. While his past success when he has made the decision is not indicative of future results, he has at least earned the benefit of the doubt about his process and decisions.

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


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I think Smith was their second or third choice. I think they felt some pressure to get it done to save face.

flying_scotsman2.0 wrote:

nswaggie wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 8:57 am

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


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I think Smith was their second or third choice. I think they felt some pressure to get it done to save face.

I think this only emphasizes the laziness. Literally any of their fans could have predicted who they were going for. What's more, who knows if either Alex Jensen or Johnnie Bryant would have been good DI head coaches. It takes a certain personality to be a DI head coach that you don't necessarily need in the NBA. I think Smith was the best choice out of the three, but I think had the AD done any sort of an actual search, he likely would have found someone even better, especially considering their budget for a HC.

Exactly- why was he even the second or third choice? Simply because they could not avoid seeing some of his success? Same with the other candidates- does U of U still get all of their news and information from the SLTribune in the form of a newspaper? Do a little work...


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CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 9:46 am

flying_scotsman2.0 wrote:

nswaggie wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 8:57 am

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think Smith was their second or third choice. I think they felt some pressure to get it done to save face.

I think this only emphasizes the laziness. Literally any of their fans could have predicted who they were going for. What's more, who knows if either Alex Jensen or Johnnie Bryant would have been good DI head coaches. It takes a certain personality to be a DI head coach that you don't necessarily need in the NBA. I think Smith was the best choice out of the three, but I think had the AD done any sort of an actual search, he likely would have found someone even better, especially considering their budget for a HC.

Exactly- why was he even the second or third choice? Simply because they could not avoid seeing some of his success? Same with the other candidates- does U of U still get all of their news and information from the SLTribune in the form of a newspaper? Do a little work...


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Maybe, but Smith took over a USU team projected to finish 9th in the MW that hadn’t been to the Dance since 2011. USU finished in the top 2 of the conference and earned NCAA tourney bids for 3 straight seasons. Seems like a pretty strong candidate to me.

I expect Smith will turn out to be a great coach for Utah. I'd wish him success, but it's Utah. Ugh. In any event, I think P5 schools have pressure (real or just perceived) to make a splash hire, either with a former player or some other name. They are not suited to finding a diamond in the rough or a "best kept secret," which is short sided in my view. The U's hiring process was odd and seemed undeveloped, at least publicly. We don't know all that went on behind the scenes. I probably would have started with Smith or at least a few other candidates. Also, the U did a poor job of managing the process, or it purposefully leaked each effort, which is baffling if true.

Pacobag wrote:

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 9:46 am

flying_scotsman2.0 wrote:

nswaggie wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 8:57 am

CaptainChaos wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 8:53 pm

ViAggie wrote:I said it before; Smith is bringing in MWC level talent to Utah while Odom is bringing in PAC-12 level talent to USU!

I don’t think it’s a bad hire for them, but for some reason it just feels like an incredibly lazy hire for the U of U. Im glad we have an AD that is willing to turn over some rocks and do a few interviews.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think Smith was their second or third choice. I think they felt some pressure to get it done to save face.

I think this only emphasizes the laziness. Literally any of their fans could have predicted who they were going for. What's more, who knows if either Alex Jensen or Johnnie Bryant would have been good DI head coaches. It takes a certain personality to be a DI head coach that you don't necessarily need in the NBA. I think Smith was the best choice out of the three, but I think had the AD done any sort of an actual search, he likely would have found someone even better, especially considering their budget for a HC.

Exactly- why was he even the second or third choice? Simply because they could not avoid seeing some of his success? Same with the other candidates- does U of U still get all of their news and information from the SLTribune in the form of a newspaper? Do a little work...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Maybe, but Smith took over a USU team projected to finish 9th in the MW that hadn’t been to the Dance since 2011. USU finished in the top 2 of the conference and earned NCAA tourney bids for 3 straight seasons. Seems like a pretty strong candidate to me.

I don’t think it was a bad hire, it just feels lazy. Who knows though, perhaps Smith pursued the job hard which is why he ended up as a top candidate.
Even as I’m writing this I see that Smith pursuing the job still implies laziness towards the U of U AD. I just hope they do a little work to find their own candidates in the future.


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The thing about Smith is he's a heck of a coach. The Aggies were very good on defense even aside from Queta's influence and the offense overachieved last year based on the lack of talent it had. But good recruiting outdoes good coaching, and I'm not sure Smith can recruit at the level he'll have to. But we'll see. He's brought in great players at both of his previous stops (Queta at USU and Matt Mooney at South Dakota) so it's possible.

I am an Aggie Man wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 10:57 am

The thing about Smith is he's a heck of a coach. The Aggies were very good on defense even aside from Queta's influence and the offense overachieved last year based on the lack of talent it had. But good recruiting outdoes good coaching, and I'm not sure Smith can recruit at the level he'll have to. But we'll see. He's brought in great players at both of his previous stops (Queta at USU and Matt Mooney at South Dakota) so it's possible.

I agree with this take. He's A+ on motivation and coaching. But, more in the B- range for recruiting. We'll see how he can do at a bottom P5 bball school.

BLUERUFiO wrote:

I am an Aggie Man wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 10:57 am

The thing about Smith is he's a heck of a coach. The Aggies were very good on defense even aside from Queta's influence and the offense overachieved last year based on the lack of talent it had. But good recruiting outdoes good coaching, and I'm not sure Smith can recruit at the level he'll have to. But we'll see. He's brought in great players at both of his previous stops (Queta at USU and Matt Mooney at South Dakota) so it's possible.

I agree with this take. He's A+ on motivation and coaching. But, more in the B- range for recruiting. We'll see how he can do at a bottom P5 bball school.

So maybe they decided to go the other way with it, because Coach Koward from my extremely distant perspective seemed like a pretty good recruiter.


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It appears that Odom is a good recruiter.

He should have success at USU

Smith proved that USU is a stepping stone to a P-5 head coach gig.

How long do you think you will be able to keep Odom ?

It wasn't that long ago that we were all lamenting our situation with Odom. We didn't have a staff. We hadn't seen our name on the twitter of portal entrants. Now we are ecstatic with our situation. I just remember that Smith was able to nab the most impactful defensive player of the last 20 years in his first year. Queta was a game changer for USU and Smith. If he can replicate that, he will be just fine.

nvspuds wrote:It appears that Odom is a good recruiter.

He should have success at USU

Smith proved that USU is a stepping stone to a P-5 head coach gig.

How long do you think you will be able to keep Odom ?

Considering how long he hung on at UMBC despite having opportunities to leave, I’m going to guess 4-5 years assuming he has some level of success at USU. Of course if the right situation comes along he could jump sooner but after listening to him I don’t think he’ll just move up for the sake of moving up.

If successful, he'll be here until someone backs up a dump truck full of money and dumps it on his lawn, just like anyone else besides a guy named Stew.

He'll be here forever, if his wife loves it here.

Bank Shot wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 12:26 pm

He'll be here forever, if his wife loves it here.

And no doubt she will... until the dump truck arrives of course.

I think it's interesting when people talk about all the transfers from the Utah program this year, but don't mention that every year they have a huge turnover for transfers. all through coach k's tenure there he had a lot of turnover because of transfers. i think smith will be ok. i will root for him, but i have too many die hard family member utes to root for the utes!!

nvspuds wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 11:48 am

It appears that Odom is a good recruiter.

He should have success at USU

Smith proved that USU is a stepping stone to a P-5 head coach gig.

How long do you think you will be able to keep Odom ?

Yeah, I agree with the 3-5 year range if he has reasonable success. I think USU (and several other MWC jobs) has long been viewed as a stepping stone to a P5. Larry E. went to Iowa St. from Logan 20 years ago. We just got lucky to break the revolving door for a while with Stew. I don't expect to see another 10-year + run for a while in Logan.

BLUERUFiO wrote:

I am an Aggie Man wrote: ↑

May 13th, 2021, 10:57 am

The thing about Smith is he's a heck of a coach. The Aggies were very good on defense even aside from Queta's influence and the offense overachieved last year based on the lack of talent it had. But good recruiting outdoes good coaching, and I'm not sure Smith can recruit at the level he'll have to. But we'll see. He's brought in great players at both of his previous stops (Queta at USU and Matt Mooney at South Dakota) so it's possible.

I agree with this take. He's A+ on motivation and coaching. But, more in the B- range for recruiting. We'll see how he can do at a bottom P5 bball school.

I think you got it right. He is going to get more out of the guys he has than you'd expect. The question is can he land the better p5 recruits. If Utah gives him a few years and he can show some success I would expect his recruiting to pick up as well. That's where he could really take off.

The pac was a strong conference last year he has his work cut out for him.

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The meaning behind transfers was more intriguing years ago when the athlete had some skin in the game and had to sit out a year. Now? With no real consequence to transferring, if a kid wants to be closer to home, get a little more playing time, pursue a different degree, or follow a girlfriend, etc. it's much easier to do. Instead, transferring usually meant a problem with the coaching staff or the player was counseled out of the program. Not always, but usually. Smith "losing" players he did not recruit and with whom he has no connection, is not surprising to me. You might argue that he needs to "recruit" them to stay and that a failure to do so is a recruiting failure. I disagree. There is a difference between recruiting a guy over time with whom the coach establishes a relationship, and having a couple of weeks to convince a stranger who loved the guy you replaced to stay.

The meaning behind transfers was more intriguing years ago when the athlete had some skin in the game and had to sit out a year. Now? With no real consequence to transferring, if a kid wants to be closer to home, get a little more playing time, pursue a different degree, or follow a girlfriend, etc. it's much easier to do. Instead, transferring usually meant a problem with the coaching staff or the player was counseled out of the program. Not always, but usually. Smith "losing" players he did not recruit and with whom he has no connection, is not surprising to me. You might argue that he needs to "recruit" them to stay and that a failure to do so is a recruiting failure. I disagree. There is a difference between recruiting a guy over time with whom the coach establishes a relationship, and having a couple of weeks to convince a stranger who loved the guy you replaced to stay.

I wasn’t worried about the Minnesota job- I was very worried about the Utah job.

P5 schools that are struggling to win will struggle to sell a USU coach to their fanbase unless they make noise in the tournament. Some coaches stay for awhile even at mid majors that make it to the final 4.... and although they do eventually move on.

Unless something else can tie that coach to the school. For Odom I’d be worried about Utah, Maryland, Virginia Tech jobs be coming open within the first 3 years even
if we consistently win the mwc. It seems P6 teams like the former players, coaches, and coaches that are local enough for fans to know.

After 4 or 5 years of constantly winning any opening can be scary... but that is well worth the cost of winning.

Based on my own anecdotal observations.

If he is successful, Odom will leave after 3-4 years (whenever it is that his buyout drops precipitously) and will leave for the first available decent ACC opening. If he is not successful, he’ll also get fired once the buyout drops precipitously.

He is here to prove himself, because he had difficulty competing for P5 jobs from UMBC. He is still young-ish, but too old to stay at USU too long if he wants to get a P5 job.

You heard it here first!

ineptimusprime wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 7:31 am

If he is successful, Odom will leave after 3-4 years (whenever it is that his buyout drops precipitously) and will leave for the first available decent ACC opening. If he is not successful, he’ll also get fired once the buyout drops precipitously.

He is here to prove himself, because he had difficulty competing for P5 jobs from UMBC. He is still young-ish, but too old to stay at USU too long if he wants to get a P5 job.

You heard it here first!

Odom actually turned down the Virginia tech job 2 years ago. It had been leaked everywhere he was going to be the new head coach, and then he decided to turn it down.

stang wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 7:15 pm

This is stupid. It may not be immediate, but Smith is going to do very, very well at Utah. He's an unbelievable coach, and he's had success literally every single place that he's been as a coach. I hate Utah as much as the next guy, but he was a very good hire for them.

It's without question that Craig Smith is good at coaching basketball. However, a whole new set of dynamics have come into play. His new job isn't just about coaching.

He has to handle bigger egos, get higher level recruits to sacrifice individual for team play, recruit at a higher level, deal more with boosters, face more criticism, etc. Can he succeed at a high level with all of those dynamics as well? It remains to be seen.

Roy McAvoy wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 7:54 am

stang wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 7:15 pm

This is stupid. It may not be immediate, but Smith is going to do very, very well at Utah. He's an unbelievable coach, and he's had success literally every single place that he's been as a coach. I hate Utah as much as the next guy, but he was a very good hire for them.

It's without question that Craig Smith is good at coaching basketball. However, a whole new set of dynamics have come into play. His new job isn't just about coaching.

He has to handle bigger egos, get higher level recruits to sacrifice individual for team play, recruit at a higher level, deal more with boosters, face more criticism, etc. Can he succeed at a high level with all of those dynamics as well? It remains to be seen.

I agree with this 100%
Success in one area doesnt guarantee that it will translate elsewhere.
Most all successful people hit roadblocks or stoppers at some stage. Peoples trajectories do not inevitably go up.

Just give it more time and more money, and I guarantee that everything will go perfectly for the Utes, given that wonderful personality of his.

If, after more time and more money, things somehow still aren't looking up, just give it even more time and even more money. Keep placing all of your bets on that personality. Everything will work out, guaranteed.

Sl7vk wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 8:16 am

Roy McAvoy wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 7:54 am

stang wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 7:15 pm

This is stupid. It may not be immediate, but Smith is going to do very, very well at Utah. He's an unbelievable coach, and he's had success literally every single place that he's been as a coach. I hate Utah as much as the next guy, but he was a very good hire for them.

It's without question that Craig Smith is good at coaching basketball. However, a whole new set of dynamics have come into play. His new job isn't just about coaching.

He has to handle bigger egos, get higher level recruits to sacrifice individual for team play, recruit at a higher level, deal more with boosters, face more criticism, etc. Can he succeed at a high level with all of those dynamics as well? It remains to be seen.

I agree with this 100%
Success in one area doesnt guarantee that it will translate elsewhere.
Most all successful people hit roadblocks or stoppers at some stage. Peoples trajectories do not inevitably go up.

So essentially he can’t do what he did at USU, because USU is way inferior to Utah and the other PAC-12 teams. I guess USU would have been a bottom dweller in the PAC-12 the past 3 seasons.

mcaggie1 wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 1:42 pm

Pacobag wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 12:55 pm

Sl7vk wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 8:16 am

Roy McAvoy wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2021, 7:54 am

stang wrote: ↑

May 12th, 2021, 7:15 pm

This is stupid. It may not be immediate, but Smith is going to do very, very well at Utah. He's an unbelievable coach, and he's had success literally every single place that he's been as a coach. I hate Utah as much as the next guy, but he was a very good hire for them.

It's without question that Craig Smith is good at coaching basketball. However, a whole new set of dynamics have come into play. His new job isn't just about coaching.

He has to handle bigger egos, get higher level recruits to sacrifice individual for team play, recruit at a higher level, deal more with boosters, face more criticism, etc. Can he succeed at a high level with all of those dynamics as well? It remains to be seen.

I agree with this 100%
Success in one area doesnt guarantee that it will translate elsewhere.
Most all successful people hit roadblocks or stoppers at some stage. Peoples trajectories do not inevitably go up.

So essentially he can’t do what he did at USU, because USU is way inferior to Utah and the other PAC-12 teams. I guess USU would have been a bottom dweller in the PAC-12 the past 3 seasons.

I don't think he can immediately do at Utah what he did at USU, for one reason.....Queta.
Smith's first year showed to me that he is a very good coach. Second year, very good coach.
Third year.....a bit above mediocre to good. Sam obviously fits in the story too. The better Queta got......the more Smith shrunk in my estimation of his coaching abilities......recruiting being the key factor here. He brought in several ok freshmen, most havent excelled, and really only had one decent recruit from the portal.
In Short, a "diamond in the rough" named Queta crossed Craig's path and made him look like the genius that he ended up not to be. Sam was the other helper in Craig's career. How can you beat those 2?

I actually agree with this. I haven't written a lot about it on here (I was extremely busy with work during March and then it just felt like sour grapes after Smith left), but I felt that Smith was thoroughly outcoached against Texas Tech. I'll need to go back and refresh my memory of the game, but I walked away feeling like a solid 65% of our loss was attributable to his coaching in the second half.

Sour grapes. I know. Whatever.