Riley Kugel OUT at Kansas! Jayhawks still in great shape | Caleb Lohner transfers to Utah..football?

Intro Riley cougal will not be a rock Chalk jhawk next season after all as the Florida transfer has re-entered the portal what does it mean for Kansas and what does it mean for [Music] cougal you are locked on college basketball part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day what's up folks welcome in the lock on college basketball podcast a daily Show Open National College hoop show part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day I am your host Andy Patton and you are joining us at the place to get your college basketball content every single day even throughout the offseason here I want to thank all of you who have made this show your first listen or your first watch of the day shout out to those everyday listeners and shout out to those of you who have joined us on our locked on college basketball Discord Channel it is very much appreciated reminder you can listen to the show at free on Amazon music today's episode of Locked on college basketball is brought to you by FanDuel folks make every moment more right now new customers will get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $ five bet that's 150 bucks with any winning $5 bet so visit fanduel.com locked on today to get started folks it is a big 12 Thursday here on lockon college basketball we're going to discuss Kansas losing Riley cougal who is not going to commit to the J Haw after all we're going to talk about Arizona's recent transfer portal editions whether it's enough to keep this team or to I guess push this team into the top five of the Big 12 in their first season we're going to close out the show with a conversation with our guy JT WIIL the host of the locked on Utes podcast we're going to talk about a couple of pretty unique transfer portal editions for the Utah Utes to close out the show but we start the lead here Riley cougal is no longer committed to join the Kansas j-hawks next season this was mentioned initially by Bill self on Monday when he was speaking with the ncaa's Andy Catz in an interview he said that Riley cougle's future with Kansas was quote up in the air that was Riley Kugel that kind of sent off some alarm Bells people were like what does this mean exactly what's the situation there is is cougal still going to end up playing at Kansas I don't think Bill self would have said that if he felt like reasonably confident that Riley cougal was going to stick with Kansas because otherwise it's just raising alarm bells and and kind of putting a story out there that ends up being a nothing burger if he does come to Kansas after all but of course he didn't and now we have a situation where Riley cougal is back in the transfer portal uh we don't know a lot of the specifics of what happened here there is certainly it's easy to look at the fact that Kansas has added multiple other transfers who play a similar position to Riley cougal since he committed to Kansas and make the obvious assumption okay Riley decided he doesn't want to go to Kansas after all because he doesn't have room to he's not going to get as much playing time as he thought he was going to get because the team has added AJ store from Wisconsin because the team added Zeke Mayo from South Dakota State because the team added Ryland Griffin from Alabama and that is a reasonable assumption to make there's also the possibility that there's something else going on here whether it's just a change of heart something as simple as hey I've I've now been to Lawrence or I've thought more about my decision or you know whatever it may be I would rather go back closer to home he's from Florida he's spent the last couple of years playing at Florida maybe there's a family situation as of right now as I'm recording this right now on Wednesday afternoon we just don't know if there's more specifics to it there's also been I don't even really want to say Rumblings but it's possible that academics are playing a role here as well this is something that I think is going to be a a part of a lot of transfer portal situations in the in the future with whether it's like the Michigan stories which are obviously the ones that get the majority of the headlines when Michigan doesn't accept a teren Shannon or a Caleb love or a John El Davis uh but increasingly as players transfer more and more often which is obviously happening in the transfer portal era being able to commit to a different school and get in academically is going to be a challenge it's going to be an issue and it's more likely to be an issue with third and fourth year guys cougle's only been at Florida for two years so in theory the majority of his credits should transfer to Kansas but I'm not working in that compliance office unless you are one of the few people on the planet who works at either Florida or Kansas's compliance office we just don't know the situation and whether that is a factor or not just to say that it could be a Factor cougle last year averaged 9.2 points 3.5 board shot 31 a half% from three about 45% on two-pointers he was a breakout candidate after a very strong freshman year for the Gators everybody and I mean everybody said hey Riley coug is going to break out for Florida as a sophomore he's going to be a first round pick in the 2024 NBA draft that did not happen he went from 9.9 points to 9.2 points his other numbers all stayed about the same the efficiency numbers dropped fairly considerably about 5 percentage points on the three-point line a little more than five percentage points on the two-point line and he ended up just losing playing time throughout the year Zion Poland took playing time from him we saw of course will Rashard and Walter Clayton Jr were were the starting guards for Florida and and koug just kind of ended up not falling out of the rotation entirely but certainly not taking on the role that many expected that he would so then he enters the transfer portal and pretty quickly commits to Kansas and everybody's thinking okay this is a nice addition for Bill self we'll see how he kind of fits in the mix and then they go out and get Zeke Mayo they go out and get AJ store from Wisconsin quite possibly the biggest transfer portal name of the entire cycle and then they go out and get Ryland Griffin from Alabama who's going to fill a really valuable role for this Kansas team and again whether cougle's decision to re-enter the portal has anything to do with academics or homesickness or playing time it doesn't really matter because it is a it's a definitive fact that Riley cougle's playing time was not going to be as much after those subsequent transfer portal editions as it looked like it was going to be when he first committed to Kansas because right now looking at this Kansas team they're still in pretty darn good shape Hunter Dickinson returns KJ Adams return returns dwan Harris returns nobody enters the transfer portal they're one of very few Power Six programs that did not have a single player enter the transfer portal this off season again we we mentioned the guys coming back uh we know Kevin mcculler is gone we're we're pretty confident Johnny Fury has gone although in theory he could return to college as well but even if we assume he does not this is what the rotation looks like for Bill Sals team Dickinson starts at the five Adam starts at the four AJ store starts at the three Dewan Harris starts at the one that starting two guard spot is going to be either Zeke mayo or El Marco Jackson or Ryland Griffin one of those three guys is going to step into that starting role elarco Jackson did not do well in that starting role last season but he could certainly take a leap developmentally from freshman year to sophomore year and compete with Griffin and Mayo for that starting spot whichever one of those guys starts the other two will obviously be players six and seven coming off the bench for Bill self's team they also have Flor badinga a 6 foot eight Center he's the 14th ranked player in the 2024 recruiting class they also have rakis Passmore 6 fo5 shooting guard who is the 44th ranked player in the 2024 class that's a nine-man rotation right there there are a handful of other players who were just outside of Kansas his rotation last year who have all committed who have none of whom have entered the transfer portal I should say so they're all going to be in the mix as well that's not to say cougal wouldn't have played they absolutely would have found a probably fairly significant role for him it would have been at the expense probably have passed more potentially of some of the other guys on this roster but ultimately if you're a Kansas fan and you're pretty concerned about losing Riley cougal it's never great you never want to see this happen but this is a team that's in pretty good shape like I've I've said on the show a few times that I take Kansas's top nine and put them up against just about anybody in college basketball this this knocks them a bit it knocks them a bit but honestly not that much this is still a really fantastic roster and is assuming Bill self can find ways to put all these pieces together this is going to work out just fine for The Jayhawks as for what it means for cougle it's too early to know we haven't seen any obvious like a list on Twitter of like hey here are the five schools that have reached out to Riley cougal since he reentered the portal or hears who he's visiting or or what we haven't seen any of that yet obviously as we get more information about that we will we will discuss it more on the show I suspect he's going to be a hot commodity he was somebody who wasn't really available in the portal for very long so I don't know how many contacts he he made initially but now with so many of the top guards already off the board including the recent additions of or the recent departures of kadari Richmond and Davon Smith who are both now with St John's there's not a lot of top tier guards available in the portal Riley kogle becomes instantly one of the Premier players available so I suspect that programs like Baylor or even Yukon or Duke they may get involved here I don't know how great of a fit cougal is at those schools individually but I think that programs that are guard needy right now they're going to give Riley cougo a call if they haven't already by the time you're listening to this because he had the upside is there the performance was not great last year but the upside is still absolutely there and I think he's going to get he's going to generate quite a bit of Interest this second time around in the transfer portal well folks most of the attention that has been on Arizona and the Wildcats this offseason has been about the team's losses in the transfer portal but Tommy Lloyd made some big additions recently as well as they look to jump right back into the top of the Big 12 standings we're going to talk about that in just a second right after I tell you that Yahoo Finance today's episode is brought to you by Yahoo 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community of over 90 million monthly users their real strength is helping you on your way to financial success so for comprehensive financial news and Analysis visit the brand behind every great investor Yahoo finance.com the number one Financial destination that's yahoofinance.com all right folks segment two still anyy Paton still locked on college basketball podcast and we're staying in the big 12 Arizona today for all three segments of course nowadays a big 12 show can be Kansas Arizona and Utah which is the three schools we're talking about today still not getting used to that being the case but here we are looking at Arizona and their recent edition of Campbell transfer guard Anthony deloro this is a big-time addition and a player that I don't think got a lot of attention during this portal season a player who I I think is is not really generating the kind of buzz that perhaps he should should be based on the performance that he had last year for the Campbell camels he's a 6 fo6 Australian guard he spent the last two years at Campbell and last season delaro averaged 19 and a half points per game six and a half boards two assists 1.6 steals he was very efficient 53.7% on two-pointers even 38% from three that was on about four attempts per game and he shot 81% from the free throw line deloro committed to Arizona over a list of a significant amount of schools which included TCU Virginia Xavier and Providence Del Oro is also in the NBA draft process although he is widely expected to return barring some kind of incredibly insane workout schedules that he does with with various teams if that were to happen and he started getting guarantees certainly that would change the equation but the the general consensus is overwhelmingly that he is expected to return to Arizona and why wouldn't you Tommy Lloyd runs NBA Style offense your ability to get eyes and attention from scouts goes up infinitely switching from Campbell to Arizona now especially with Arizona in the Big 12 I mean the jump from the ca to the Big 12 is one of the biggest jumps that you can make in division one college basketball and it's going to be fascinating to see how Del Oro handles that jump but it's a a in terms of bumping up his NBA draft uh SK his NBA Draft profile this is the way that you do that you go to a program like Arizona where you're going to get eyes on you you're going to play the top tier competition in college basketball and you're going to play in an offensive set that I think Scouts are going to want to see how you handle in that situation uh this is a big move for Lloyd because it helps replace some of the significant amount of losses that we have seen from the Wildcats so far this off season pel Larson they're starting three the player that deloro is likely going to replace in terms of minutes in production and performance uh pel larsson's gone he's in the NBA draft process Kad Johnson they're starting power for the San Diego State transfer he's in the NBA draft process as well meanwhile kylin Boswell has already transferred to Illinois starting center Umar Balo decided to play his final year of college basketball at Indiana instead of at Arizona so those four guys are all gone meanwhile KJ Lewis and Caleb love are both in the NBA draft process right now although both are expected at this point to return uh we'll see if that happens obviously if both players choose not to return that's a really significant loss for Tommy Lloyd in his back court but even if those two guys do come back it's still you're still losing two key four key starters in Larson Johnson Boswell and Balo all of those guys are out the door they also lost a trio of depth options who have pursued other options in the transfer portal as well that includes paus morz who went to St Mary's Philip bvis who went to New Mexico and then Dylan Anderson who has transferred to Boise State this is going to be a brand new look team for Tommy the Arizona Wildcats next year tough to have to rebuild a roster when you go from the Pack 12 to the Big 12 where you're going to have a lot of competition where every single game is going to be an absolute dog fight grinded out type of contest however deloro is not the only addition that Arizona has made so far this transfer portal season we've talked briefly at times usually kind of shoving it into a sixpack about some of the other players that Tommy Lloyd and Arizona have brought in but right now I want to take a fuller scope look at what this offseason has been like so far for Tommy Lloyd and the Wildcats because we talked about the losses and we talked about the most recent addition which is Anthony deloro from Campbell but this team also brought in a six foot eight power forward from Tennessee Toby aaka who did not have a super productive season in terms of raw numbers at Tennessee part of that is just the the players who were in front of him on the roster part of that is just the fact that Tennessee is a very defensive focused team and they don't necessarily light up the scoreboard the way that somebody like Arizona does for example but aaka did average Five Points four and a half boards and he was very efficient just over 59% from the field he's not a floor spacer he is a he does all of his scoring around the rim but in terms of just adding some physicality some size a bit of an enforcer on the block again you lose Kad Johnson and Umar Balo so you need some more physical presence uh in the front court and Toby aaka coming from that Tennessee system that Rick Barnes runs is going to be able to add that for Tommy Lloyd's team they also went out and got Trey Townson from Oakland a player who made a name for himself with a really strong performance uh for Oakland in the NCAA tournament he was fantastic for them in the regular season as well uh he comes to he joins Arizona 6 fo 64 he's got one year of Eligibility remaining a player that many think could put himself in the NBA draft conversation with a strong season at Arizona as well he's again a 6'6 forward so the same size as deloro average 17.3 points 8.1 rebounds 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals last year for Oakland shot 46% on two-pointers and 37 a half% from the three-point line so you got your three transfer portal additions Toby aaka Trey Townson and Anthony deloro you have a lot of losses but another important detail for Arizona they got a really good recruiting class coming in and I think that's where you see the the the depth options the Dylan Anderson and the morcus that's why you see those guys transferring because they're look at the incoming recruiting class and they're thinking man I was hoping that all these players leaving would lead to me getting more playing time but I'm probably just going to get replaced by an incoming freshman and in some cases they were probably right and that's why it makes sense to transfer to somewhere like New Mexico or Boise State or St Marys because this class coming in very solid we got Josan sonan from he's a six foot five four star small forward he's ranked 22nd in the class this is all using 247 sports's rankings they also have C Bryant who's been on the radar for a very long time an explosive athlete extreme extreme athlete the kind of guy who could win a dunk contest in the not too distant future he's a 6 fo8 four star small forward he's ranked 26th in the 2024 recruiting class they also have Jamari Phillips a 6 fo3 four-star combo guard he's 52nd in the recruiting class and then Emanuel Steven A seven-footer another fourstar he's a center and he is 104th in the class so Four Freshman coming in three transfers coming in a lot of players exiting what does that mean on May 8th as we try to Big 12 Standings look at what the Big 12 standings are going to look like and the question is whether Arizona can be a top five team in the Big 12 and it's kind of crazy that it feels like the ceiling for Arizona is a top five team in their conference this is a team that was a two- seed in back-to-back Seasons you rarely talk about two seeds as guys as teams that are barely or maybe going to finish top five in their conference but here's the deal Kansas Baylor Houston and Iowa State all four of those teams right now look like top 10 teams in the country we talked about Kansas obviously losing Riley cougal but they are still unquestionably not just a top 10 team but right now a top five team in the country next year I think Iowa state is in that conversation as well they retained basically everybody from a team that was extremely good last year they've made some quality additions including Joshua Jefferson from St Mary's Baylor still got a little bit of work to do but I think they're in a much better spot right now nor Chad oir and Jeremy roach is a tremendous transfer portal class you figure out you you you throw in VJ Edgecomb the star freshman who's joining that team they've had a lot of success with one andone freshman the last couple of years uh that's a really really good team as well and Houston yeah they they keep LJ CER they lose Jamal shed they lose some other players as well but Terence Arseno is coming back from injury Emanuel Sharp's going to be back that Houston team is going to be really good as well the question is whether Arizona can be a are we going to be talking about the big 12's big four or the big 12's Big Five is Arizona going to be in that conversation because there are some other teams that can compete for that spot as well Cincinnati returns almost everybody from a team that was very good last year Texas Tech we'll see what Grant mccastlen can do they got some roster churn going on but that team was quality last year Kanas State Jerome Tang has made some big moves already they get Doug McDaniel from Michigan they got some other transfers coming in they did did just lose Arthur Kuma which is going to hurt them a little bit BYU we'll see where they're at they obviously have a a significant amount of turnover with a new coach Kevin young coming in but they've brought in some pieces as well and there's I mean that's that's not even everybody obviously we'll see what West Virginia looks like with the new head coach Daren Dev uh you got you the rest of the newcomers joining the conference from along with Arizona and Arizona State in Colorado in Utah we're going to talk about Utah momentarily this is going to be a tough conference it always is it always is TCU didn't even mention them they were a tournament team last year very quality program as well so I think Arizona is in that top five and I think that's kind of the cut off is those are your top five teams but this is a program with a lot of rebuilding still to be done if you're a believer in Tommy Lloyd and his ability to get the best out of his players and make the pieces work then I think you feel pretty good about the players that Arizona has brought in so far but it's not they're not going to have those gimme games that they've had in the Pack 12 every single game is going to be a gauntlet in the Big 12 and I'm excited and curious and cautiously optimistic about what Arizona is going to look like in their first year in a new conference with a very new look roster well folks Utah added a pair of transfers from Baylor this week but one of them is going to be lining up on the grid iron instead of the hardwood and we're going to talk about that in just a second right after I tell you that today's episode of Locked on college basketball is brought to you by FanDuel FanDuel folks it is winner take all time in the NBA and NHL and FanDuel is giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own because right now new customers will get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that's 150 bucks to bet on spreads money lines player props and more and right now if you're looking ahead of the 2025 NCAA tournament Kansas Remains the favorite to win it all at FanDuel they at plus 1,000 odds meanwhile Arizona not as good at odds they're at plus 3500 but if you're a Believer if you're a big Trey Townson fan or a big Anthony delaro fan you're thinking hey this team's going to turn it around in that extra competition the Big 12 is going to put them in a spot where they can kind of exercise those NCAA tournament demons then what are you waiting forit fanduel.com lockon right now and make every playoff shot count FanDuel America's number one Sportsbook I am thrilled to be joined to close out Today's Show by JT WIIL the host of the Caleb Lohner locked on Utes podcast like I said we're keeping it in the Big 12 it's weird that the three schools we're talking about on today's show are Kansas Arizona and Utah but they are all technically Big 12 teams and that's what we're doing today we're going to talk about some of the roster movement we've recently seen for the youths and JT I want to start with the Caleb loner transfer because for me I read the Tweet before I saw the picture and I saw that Caleb loner of course he spent two years at BYU was seven points seven rebounds per game player went to Baylor spent a couple years there as a reserve forward didn't play much I see that he's entering the transfer portal I see that he's committing to Utah and I think okay that's some nice depth you know they lost Brandon Carl they need some more depth in the front Court this will be great and then I scrolled down and I was like he is wearing a football uniform and I realized of course that he is actually transferring to Utah to join the football team and he mentioned in his tweet that he may may play for the basketball team it was sort of this vague open-ended statement and interestingly Baylor has had multiple players transition from football to basketball I don't know why it happens at Baylor a lot in fact most of you who listen to this know that I also host was locked on zags Demitri Goodson played and zag as a point guard transferred to B Baylor played cornerback and ended up playing in the NFL they had Mark Vall do the similar situation played basketball transition to football I don't know why it's happening at Baylor constantly but I want to talk to you about what this means for Utah specifically for football and a little bit for basketball because it's just kind of a goofy announcement that we got earlier this week it's very goofy by you mentioned Mark uh did he Andy work with the Chiefs did that end up working out for him I think I think so yeah the last I saw yeah okay good for him um also do not please don't remind us Utah fans right now that we are in the same basketball conference as Kansas and Arizona because we got enough things we're stressing about and so why I'm on this show right now but great to be on with you Andy the Cale loner situation is wild I remember being a student at Utah while he was being recruited bumped into him on campus while he was on his official visit and you're like oh everyone was all really excited about the potential of Caleb loner a guy who went to wasach Academy which is obviously a big school out there where they develop basketball Talent another guy we might talk about K also went there but yeah it was really disappointing when he goes to BYU has some success there never really loved and and same thing at Baylor right like contributed but never really lived up to the fourstar billing that he received and I think that's why we're seeing him try to go play football because I don't think he sees an NBA path because there isn't an NBA path with his game and the way it's played at the next level and it's going to be very hard for there to be an NFL path with him but I'll say this he is 68 and 235 there only so many NFL players who can claim to be 68 and we've seen before tight ends and we've seen before some of these guys who play basketball like also them they transition to be tight ends which is reportedly what he would be doing he was seen at the spring game talking to Utah's tight end Coach and I think that makes some sense just because of the size the jumping ability you see the potential there I will say Andy Utah is one of the best head end rooms in the country they got a guy Nam Brant keithy who has 2600 yard receiving Seasons they got two other like quality starters like I don't see a path for him to play much this fall but maybe it's like get the start get the potential and then try for the NFL thing but no Utah basketball like absolutely needs Caleb loner so he is definitely welcome on the basketball team GRE Smith and Co have missed out on a few recruits now especially guys like Brandon Carlson moving on K we already mentioned like loner will definitely come in right away and I I think he'd be a backup center kind of right now is what they would look at him most for too but a great get for the basketball team and you know what when you're a Utah football who's been consistently a top five program top 15 program excuse me over the past Seasons that's where you're kind of sitting like okay um you can afford to take a lowrisk high reward type of guy and for the basketball player it's kind of a necessity for the men's basketball team right now yeah the men's basketball team in particular Transfers there lot a lot of losses in the front Court like we mentioned with Carlson and a couple other guys and and some some losses in the back court recently as well we got Raleigh Worster going over to Nebraska uh Devin Smith heads out he's transferring to St Johns uh we mentioned Kev he's going to transfer to BYU we're going to talk about that in just a second but but uh there are some additions coming in Craig Smith did bring in some guys and speaking of Baylor obviously Caleb loner's uh looking like he's going to be football and basketball but Miro little is going to be a basketball player for the Utah UTS he's going to play the point guard position he's a guy who was not relatively seldom used at Baylor but probably a guy who's going to step into a bigger role again with the the losses we've already seen you got Boston College Point Guard Mason Madson coming in you got a couple other bigs coming in keano keano do excuse me from Rice as well as Zach Keller from Wake Forest and it feels like there's still a lot of roster construction to be done for Craig Smith and the UTS and like you mentioned some guys they struck out on but uh we're seeing the pieces starting to come together for this roster any of those transfers in particular kind of stand out to you of like hey this is a guy we're really excited about bringing into the yous program to me it's little by far Madson excites me he's the twin brother of Gabe I think there's some fun Gabe Madson who's Utah's best returning player by a country mile currently right now there he's a decent shooter but it's he only averaged eight points a game you lost Davon Smith you lost Raley wster Brandon Carlson's leaving like so much of this team scoring has departed that's where it's like man we really need to get more scoring in there so Madson helps but and even though little only averaged a point a game I'm excited and optimistic about what he can do at UT talk because this is a guy who was a former fourstar he has a lot of potential was buried behind a back court that helped lead Baylor into the NCA tournament Utah is not was not an NCA tournament team there's a reason this is the first time I'm on this show and there's a I'm sure Utah basketball only came up so many times on that show because there's already enough teams to talk about in the field of 68 you're only you're only going to go so far until you get to the Utah of the world so they still got a lot of work to do and try to get there and if you're a team like Utah who was on the last 12 let's say that missed out you're looking for adding guys that are kind of those guys okay who's being overlooked right now and little has the potential to be that despite not having a ton of successive Baylor potential is so big in college basketball obviously and it's undou deniable that little has that he's a guy who's played for the national team right and during his time in the 2023 feber World Cup averaged Five Points a game 4.6 assists in 17 minutes right came over now had to adjust to the college game and everything that comes along with there but I think it was a great learning experience for him at Baylor he still played in a lot of games for them despite not receiving a ton of minutes and I think we see guys oftentimes make their best leaps from their freshman to sophomore year and I think in a lot of ways he has an opportunity to take the range of the starting point guard spot with both rooster and deavon Smith also being gone so this is where I see an opportunity for little to potentially be really good even though he only averaged a point a game I'm really excited about his potential because I think that it could be really high and if Utah is going to be successful in the Big 12 I just have a hard time seeing a world in which they are successful and Little's not a key part of it let's talk about that move to the Big 12 because I think we're we're Utah to Big 12 looking at two programs in particular who are who are coming over in Utah and Colorado who probably had a better would would have been more it would have been more enjoyable for the fan based if they had joined the previous year when Brandon Carlson was in the mix for for Colorado they're losing a lot of significant Talent as well and now you come into the conference and obviously it's a move predicated based on football the majority of conference reignment moves are and Utah obviously has had quite a bit of success in the football area but from a basketball perspective this is going to be tough I don't think there's really any other way to look at it because on one hand obviously going into the Big 12 you're going to probably be able to get better recruits you're going to be able to sell recruits on hey you're coming to the best basketball conference even if we finished 500 in conference play you know you finished 500 in the Pack 12 you had no chance of making the NCA tournament you finished 500 in the Big 12 you're probably goingon to go dancing so I do think there are some pros that come with it but at the same time looking at what this conference is going to look like next year there is a it's a tough path right now for this Utah team to be in I mean we we again in the second segment of this show we talked about Arizona like they're gonna have to fight hard to be a top five team in the conference they've been a two seed two years in a row and they may not be a top five team in their own conference that is how crazy deep the Big 12 is and and topheavy and all the way throughout and and for Utah like for Coach Craig Smith like he's going to have his handsful trying to make a trying to find ways to compete in basketball games this year he Craig Smith is and his job could potentially be on the line there are tons of fans that are calling for his job I think Craig Smith is a good coach there's no question that we've missed on some recruits there you've lost some huge Road games now nearly making the NCA tournament and then going far in the NIT was a step in the right direction I defitely think he's earned another year to do things like that but if you regress simply because you're in the as tough a conference as the Big 12 and you've lost out on a lot of talent also say the best guy over the course of Craig Smith's tenure at Utah was Brandon Carlson that's not a guy he brought in that was a Larry kovak holdover so I do think this would be his opportunity where yes you got deavon Smith last year that was a great get you got to do it again and that's what college basketball has become right no one knows that better than you and all of your listeners how big the transfer portal is you got to continue to add and bring in talent but it's going to be tough and sometimes in order to get your basketball program back to where you hope it can be when you're making the NCA tournament every year or just frequently you got to get your ke teeth kicked in and you got to really go down and then you kind of have to rebuild it from there so it's going to be a great interesting path to see how it goes for Utah basketball I think it's going to be rough in year one but I'm excited to get BYU and Utah back twice a year I think that aspect of the Rivalry renewed is going to be a lot of fun especially with the added drama of assistant coach Chris Burgess who started at BYU then he went to Utah now he's back at BYU and in the last hour of the transfer portal he took K with him to go to BYU now so a lot of fun drama there I'm excited to have the Rivalry back I think it's going to be one of the better ones in the Big 12 in general BYU basketball even with Kevin young they got a good chance to be better than Utah still even in the first year but rivalry games are always fun and I think long term this move getting Utah into a tougher conference will force them to elevate their level and I do eventually think we will see Utah make some NCA tournaments in the Big 12 it's not going to be a year in and year out type of thing but I just think when you're playing against teams this good it forces you to raise your level and that's what you talk to do JT Wier still locked on UT thank you so much for coming on the show uh like I said well like we said first time but hopefully not the last time hopefully there's more excitement with Utah basketball to come and we can have more conversations like this why don't you let the folks know where they can find you where they can find the podcast yeah you guys can check me out on Twitter our show is at locked on Utes mine is JT wiill listed below as well but yeah locked ones we talking all things Utah football we're very excited about football football should be very good this year a lot of returners coming back basketball absolutely no idea I'm actually gonna be doing an episode that comes out this week talking about where the basketball program is kind of at right now so if you guys have any interest in that too I it's going to be a fascinating offseason to cover Utah basketball so we'll continue to do that on the show too Andy thank you so much for having me on man it's great talking to you it's gonna wrap it up for us today here on the lockd on college basketball podcast myself and co-host Isaac shade will be back on Friday getting you ready for the weekend and getting everything going with the transfer portal Madness as it continues thanks for listening and until next time as always peace out