The Deuce: Improving defensively is an absolute must. Also, we were at our best when we were cutting

On this game specifically, there’s a bit too much slobbering of Mark Pope and bashing of Underwood. There are things on defense that I hope we adjust this offseason, but 90% of this was a “get old, stay old” team playing against a team that had first year players as 4 of their top 6. Our young guys except Ivisic weren’t ready for the moment, there’s nothing magical about anything Pope did. We just didn’t play well and also had another game where we just couldn’t hit open shots.

But Pope didn’t win a single tournament game in 5 years at BYU, by the standards of some here that by default makes him a terrible coach. He’s a good coach but the reflexive instinct to want to view every coach as better than Underwood is perplexing to me. He put together a really good veteran roster with likely a 2x NIL budget than we had, good for him.

As it relates to the whole season, I have no real complaints. We finished the regular season in the top 25 and made the round of 32. It’s not a great season but it was a success overall and built upon the elite 8 season with a year that kept us nationally relevant. The lows were really low but there were a lot of really fun moments too (Arkansas, Miznoz, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Purdue, etc.).

Long-term, the “get old stay old” thing I mentioned above is ultimately what needs to get better. It was somewhat out of necessity due to the structure of last year’s team and striking out with top portal targets, and they made a hell of a pivot because we had none of KJ, Ivisic, or Riley at the time that the portal was damn near empty. This year should have been a hell of a lot worse based on where we were at in May.

But there has to be some continuity, and hopefully that starts with Boswell, Ivisic, and Morez. I think DGL, Tre, and Rodgers already probably know they’re leaving, but if you can keep that core 3 plus program guys in Davis, Jakatys, that’s much easier to build around. Seems like we are going after Euros and reclass freshman again which worries me a bit, but if you add them along with a proven vet on the wing then it could be just fine. But honestly it’s pretty amazing we pulled off a top 25 season replacing 98% of scoring, doing it mostly with freshmen, and kind of just getting a “C” type grade from your transfer class.

All in all, I still think this was a fun but frustrating season and both Underwood and this roster took way too much hate from the board. We definitely can’t just be happy with one second weekend run from last year, but being in the round of 32 in 4 of the last 5 seasons still shouldn’t be taken for granted. If we start losing guys like Morez or Tomi or just try to run it back again with freshmen again next year, I’ll have bigger concerns. But overall I’m still very happy with Underwood and trust that he’ll make adjustments on the things that didn’t work (mainly the defense). It always just takes him a while to get there, but having 2 years of very bad data on it won’t be ignored and I except to see changes to the approach and possibly the staff too.