Mika, will he stay or will he go?

According to “Darnell Dickson Daily Herald”

“Rumors that Mika wasn’t happy with the BYU coaching and the program persisted,”

http://www.heraldextra.com/sports/college/byu/basketball/men/byu-men-s-hoops-mika-decides-to-hire-an-agent/article_c0e84703-3716-5fd9-9cfd-86bbe1d49b74.html

We saw he was frustrated in some way with his team. I can tell he was frustrated with the officiating in wcc games. Why didn’t Tyler Haws leave early when he was mugged so many times during wcc games? Well, I didn’t think he was NBA material but didn’t matter because he stayed the whole thing & graduated.
Maybe we should start a new Independent in BBall like FBall. I know it won’t happen/work! But I like to leave the men’s wcc bball.

Jim Hawks was the one suggesting that there was something going wrong in the locker-room. I don’t know if there was discord among the players…could have been. Mika says he enjoyed his time at BYU and enjoyed his teammates. But, if you have been paying attention to the coach’s comments, including those of Steve Cleveland, you can start to piece together what was happening. Both Rose and Cleveland came out VERY strongly against fans who heaped too much criticism on the players this last season, especially the LP3. Apparently, they got lambasted in the social media for not meeting the hype and expectations. Rose lashed out a month or so ago at the critical fans. I’m getting the impression that fan criticism took the fun out of playing together and Mika was ready to move on. To be honest, the coaches may have been victims of a problem partly of their own making. Everyone was hyped about the LP3, the BYU sports marketing team, the coaches and all the fans that followed the LP program. If that is what really drove Mika away then its a pity. Rose was pretty quick to say now that Mika is gone, the team can do a reset and the LP expectations can disappear. Sometimes we fans are our own worst enemy.

I happen to agree about dilutional fans that expect too much. If you noticed Mika praised the coaches and players. Not the fans. The only thing if it was the fans, wait until he gets a load of the NBA fans. I just hope he’s mature enough to handle the whole NBA seen.

It was the “high/low” game. BYU stops its run and gun approach to try the “stop, set up and feed it into Mika” Did not work for BYU, no one runs that kind of game anymore in the NBA, at least since Olajuwon retired. So how was Mika going to get NBA experience when he should have been playing in a “Pic and roll” anyway here at BYU. The NBA game has gone to fast paced movement with primary pic and rolls and pics off screens and tons of 3 point shots. Mika would be rebounding and shooting mostly mid range to deep shots because there is always a 7 footer on every team to swat any low post junk. and lets be frank, Mika will be an active clean up guy rather than a primary option.
Mika was better served to make the jump. sad but true

He will be a clean up guy because he didn’t stay in college…

Basketball for Mika is a career choice. What is wrong with him moving on in his career? Even if he is not that great in the big game he will probably end up out earning us in short order. Again, what is wrong with that? He went to college to improve his skills and his marketability and in his mind he had done that sufficiently well enough to trade his skills for pay.

College is no a panacea. It is not the end all, be all of human and career development. The quality of a person is not determined by his degree or his vocation. Because of this I hold no grudges against a guy that leaves college early to pursue this vocation.

Now, would I like two more years with Mika on the floor? Absolutely. Do I think he could improve his NBA marketability with another year or two of college ball? Yes. But it is not my life nor my decision how a guy makes an honorable living. While I rather have him at BYU, I wish him the best.

Not to Jabbar and many others. He will make a good income of a while. Then what? BYU builds good character. He should have stayed for the benefit of his so called friends :slight_smile:

I have always said you can go to college with few resource and in a wheel chair so why couldn’t he return to college healthy or broken, rich or broke any time he wants?

I am not a fan of Jabbar’s morals and ethics. Only his jump hook.

BYU is an awesome place for hundreds of reasons but character can be nurtured and built most anywhere. What is inside is far more important that what is outside. I loved BYU. It was difficult, sometimes harsh, even lonely but also friendly, welcoming, and largely a wonderful place to be for a person with a growing testimony. I was after the good and found it. Others hate BYU and most everything about it and this comes from former students but I say the their problem with BYU has more to do with what is inside of them than the school.

Back on topic: After making a lot of money in basketball Mika could start a charitable foundation, travel the world sharing the gospel, open car dealerships, become a monk, coach basketball, serve in the church. Our vocation and even second vocation does not matter much to the Lord if it is honorable. I am sure having a reasonable bank account would help him find opportunities. He appears to be a focused and dedicated kind of guy so imagine that would translate outside the court too.

He should have stayed so I could selfishly benefit from his talents in a BYU uniform!

You have a good perspective on the Mika situation and the BYU experience. Its time to move on and look to the future. I’m disappointed we missed out on the Springer kid. By my count, there are two scholarships left. Any word on potential recruits?

Thanks for the great insight…as usual! Now that Nashif is gone, is there any indication Rose will implement more of a “pic and roll” offensive attack involving the bigs this year?

He should have stayed and honored his commitments. So, what morals and ethics do you dislike about Jabbar? I know he’s a liberal but I haven’t heard him a spouse immorality?

I don’t follow Jabbar but I have heard him make comments that I take to racist. I have also heard him fanning fears of racism and encouraging racial activism that no white man could ever say w/o great repercussions. I also am biased against his moral foundation of Islam because I do not find it to be a moral foundation. You can cherry pick moral parts but that would require dismissing many horrific things. And frankly when it comes to politics I find many of his comments to be flat out lies with the intent to harm. Certainly from a Law of Chastity perspective he has not been moral. I don’t know of all his deeds but he did father a child with a Buddhist woman he was not married to after his Hamas arranged marriage ended in divorce. Therefore I do not find him to be moral or ethical in my opinion. I really hope not to learn any more about him or hear from him any more than I do Hillary or Obama.

I admit I do not know what commitments Mika made. Was his scholarship a binding contract for a certain number of years? I did not have an athletic scholarship. I know they can easily be taken away but I do not know if they commit a person to stay enrolled in school.

I wish he would stay. Barring injury I think he would be better for it and I would enjoy it. One normally goes to college mostly to obtain skills and opportunities to earn a living. It seems Erik has done that sufficiently in his estimation. While I will miss him, I do not hold him entering his careerfield at this time against him.

Coaching…who knows? I think Schroyer is a good choice but how will the dynamics work out? What will his experience bring to the coaching and playing teams? I thought Nashif was supposed to be fantastic but things that were supposed to be under his stewardship did not seem awesome last season.

I don’t subscribe to the hysteria about Rose being a political animal, playing politics, or any of the other evil designs ascribed to him. I think he is a good coach that makes better and worse decisions at times because I have get to critical review his decisions after the fact. I am not in his shoes and making the decisions real time. I think he is trying to sustain a very mobile program at a high level and it is very difficult. Sometimes the personalities and talents gel better than at other times and the results show. I think he coached a great game at Gonzaga last year, perhaps one of his best coached games. I think St. Mary’s significantly out coached him three times last year.

agreed. Now can anybody tell me why we only ran Mika out in the high pic for the Gonzaga game and never saw that again as long as Mika was a Cougar? SMC’s Bennett uses Landale in the High pic and he is not 1/2 the athlete Mika is.
Mika needed that style of play to improve his midrange game and NBA stock and we do it once the entire year…that in a nutshell is why Mika left. Frustrated!!!

Are you equally appalled at the foundation of the Jewish faith too? The OT is their foundation and it has some things like stoning children that don’t follow their parents ways. Eye for and eye and beheading like Nephi did. I seriously doubt Jabbar agrees with ISIS or any of that. I think his adultery is also present in any religion as people sin. Have to be careful when judging.

I am still (not really) frustrated when Shawn Bradley didn’t come back. Now I have to deal with Mika too.
No, not really, I was done thinking about Shawn once football started on that same year. I am already done about Mika. Just move on, it’s over. And no more talking about LP thing.

Changing subject: Right now I am disgruntle about Utah beating BYU Women’s Softball today and why they are holding the Regional in their place. We already beat them last time. 5 Pac 12 teams are holding their Reional at their place. Yes I saw the game and we did play well beating Miss. St. in the 1st game 8-0. We may have to play two games tomorrow.

That’s the way it is. We lose the important games. It’s all mental.

Grasshopper, Grasshopper, Grasshopper…you keep jumping about like, well, a grasshopper. You asked me why I thought the way I did about Jabbar and I told you. Is that not sufficient? With Jewish roots would you really compare Islam to Judaism? While some things may be similar they are worlds apart. I don’t recall the last Jewish honor killing of a female child that was raped or a post Passover beheading of a infidel.

Do I not have the right to hold Jabbar’s opinion in low regard? Yes, he may know a thing or two about basketball but his opinion does not interest me much.

But hey, this is an opinion board fundamentally and we are here to sling about thoughts, ideas, and opinions. That is the game. So, my opinion about last year is the coaches where out coached too many times. Something certainly seemed amiss. The Gonzaga game is one we could have easily been blown out in but the coaches, their calls, and the players pulled through with a ginormous win. I am grateful for that. The rest of the season and the tournaments…well not so much.

The players struggled. They had a hard time playing at a consistently good level. The chemistry just did not seem to come together very often. They did not play like a cohesive team most of the year. Some of that is coaching and some of that is the players themselves in my opinion.

I was looking forward to Mika having a great year and the team finding its swagger. Mika is gone and so is what was supposed to have been a key coach. Things will be different. Can the coaches find chemistry like the Spurs w/o Parker? Hopefully they can but Rose is not Pop and the Cougs are not the Spurs.

You are right. The truth about college nowadays is that it is a scam for the most part. Somehow it isn’t enough to have a bachelor’s degree, everyone is supposed to have a masters or doctorate. If you don’t then somehow you aren’t qualified to work?

What is happening is that society is creating over educated people who don’t know how to work anymore. They think the piece of paper entitles them to big paying jobs where they don’t have to do anything. It’s a scam and a sham because they get into huge debt and spend the rest of their lives paying back their education debt, not to speak of the huge debts incurred with buying a home and car, etc.

Society is a mess.

Nothing wrong with what Gary said about Jabbar. Nobody is judging, just stating facts. He was also known for his drug use… aka Kareem Abdul Jablunt. That isn’t a judgement, just facts. I think he is trying to be a good guy, but the media will use him as a political tool to fan the flames of racism or whatever other topic they wish to abuse.

It’s a conspiracy!