Monday Musings

Random observations on a day when nothing much is happening…

* While it’s true the Jazz have gotten off to slow starts before, this one is disconcerting to them for a a couple of reasons. First, they lost at home to an awful (Sacramento) team. That stuff rarely happened with old Jazz teams. Second, they’re not playing any defense. Past Jazz teams had tough guys who played good defense most nights. Jeff Hornacek, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Antoine Carr, Mark Eaton and others played hard defensively. This year’s Jazz only include two or three players who even go to the trouble on a regular basis.

*Utah’s football team isn’t all that good. Everyone knows that. You can’t be a great team if you struggle with teams like Wyoming and Colorado State. At the same time, Coach Kyle Whittingham has a knack for getting his team ready for big games – something BYU hasn’t yet mastered. I’m doubting Utah will beat TCU this week, but it’s unlikely it will get blown out the way BYU did against the Horned Frogs. BYU this year wins big and loses big. Utah is almost always somewhere in the middle.

* Which brings up another item regarding Utah’s game against TCU. Thanks to its recent success, Utah goes into every game expecting to win. That’s clearly not the case with BYU. Otherwise, it wouldn’t lose by such wide margins. When Utah lost at Oregon this year, players seemed genuinely surprised they didn’t win an disappointed they didn’t play well.

* You have to like RSL coach Jason Kreis for his sense of timing. His teams fumble and stumble through the regular season, but now he’s in the conference finals for the second straight year. Whatever it is, Jerry Sloan might want to model the Jazz after RSL (Who ever thought that would be a consideration?). Forget the regular season – oops! they already have! — but just be sure they get in the playoffs and then make a run once the post-season begins.