Byu's recruiting advantage over the utes

Maybe I'm a little bit late to the party posting this but I thought it was worth a mention. Utah is playing a home game this year on a Sunday. If you are an LDS athlete playing for Utah right now you are in one serious pickle, more so from a public stand point.

If you play does your family come watch?



IMO this is a HUGE advantage BYU has with Mormon Basketball recruits. :P

no problem with Sunday play if you're already on a "sports mission."



:gross: :roll:

stgeorgefan wrote:
Maybe I'm a little bit late to the party posting this but I thought it was worth a mention. Utah is playing a home game this year on a Sunday. If you are an LDS athlete playing for Utah right now you are in one serious pickle, more so from a public stand point.

If you play does your family come watch?



IMO this is a HUGE advantage BYU has with Mormon Basketball recruits. :P

I was thinking this same thing earlier. I recall that when the announcement to the Pac 12 was made, that they were told not to worry, it would just be the smaler sports being scheduled for Sunday. This week when the Utes played a home game on Sunday I thought, WOW, that didn't take long... It has to come up that it will be a problem, and cannot help when recruiting an LDS kid

Even the Jazz ask to play as few home games on Sunday as possible because of feared smaller turnouts. How will the Utes get anyone out?

hawkwing wrote:
Even the Jazz ask to play as few home games on Sunday as possible because of feared smaller turnouts. How will the Utes get anyone out?

My company has Jazz tickets. When I moved to SLC in 2008, I told the other guy in the office (he's a gentile) that I'd prefer not to go to any of the Sunday games. In the 5 seasons I've been here, there hasn't been a single Sunday home game in the regular season. Not one.



Playoffs are a different story. They haven't had trouble filling the seats for playoff games.



I think the Millers have struck a good compromise.

What's the difference between playing on Sunday as a college athlete vs playing on Sunday as a professional athlete? If it's not okay at the college level, why is it suddenly okay at the professional level? If an LDS HS athlete has the goal (and potential/ability) to play at the pro level, why does it matter if he plays on Sundays while in college? Or even HS for that matter? Why is it okay to play basketball/football on Sundays when you're 25+, but not when you're 12-24?



Oh yeah, you need to earn a living for your family. Professional sports is a necessity like doctors who must work on Sundays...



This is only a big deal for the good Mormon kids that have no professional sports dreams (which is fine).

byufan4ever wrote:
What's the difference between playing on Sunday as a college athlete vs playing on Sunday as a professional athlete? If it's not okay at the college level, why is it suddenly okay at the professional level? If an LDS HS athlete has the goal (and potential/ability) to play at the pro level, why does it matter if he plays on Sundays while in college? Or even HS for that matter? Why is it okay to play basketball/football on Sundays when you're 25+, but not when you're 12-24?



Oh yeah, you need to earn a living for your family. Professional sports is a necessity like doctors who must work on Sundays...



This is only a big deal for the good Mormon kids that have no professional sports dreams (which is fine).

Assuming all you say is correct (which it isn't) that's still 9 out of 10 kids playing basketball, if not 9.7 out of 10. Not to mention all of the ushers, concessionaires, cameramen etc.

byufan4ever wrote:
What's the difference between playing on Sunday as a college athlete vs playing on Sunday as a professional athlete? If it's not okay at the college level, why is it suddenly okay at the professional level? If an LDS HS athlete has the goal (and potential/ability) to play at the pro level, why does it matter if he plays on Sundays while in college? Or even HS for that matter? Why is it okay to play basketball/football on Sundays when you're 25+, but not when you're 12-24?



Oh yeah, you need to earn a living for your family. Professional sports is a necessity like doctors who must work on Sundays...



This is only a big deal for the good Mormon kids that have no professional sports dreams (which is fine).

The answer is this: If you had the option to play for a pro team that never played on Sundays and ones that do, which would you choose?

My post was regarding the OP about the Utes scheduling a basketball game on a Sunday. Here's the point of my post:



I'm an LDS HS athlete with plans to play in the NBA. I know that if I make into the NBA, I will have to play/practice on Sundays. So, if I know I'm going to be playing basketball on Sundays and I'm ok with that, why would I care if I play basketball on Sundays during college? Why would Utah (or any other college) scheduling a basketball game on a Sunday affect my decision of where to play (there are many other good reasons to not choose Utah)?

Because right now, you don't "have" to play on Sundays. You may not make it to the NBA where it will be a requirement. (and even then you could still chose not to - if your owner and/or coach were ok with it)



Just because some HS athlete has "plans to play in the NBA" doesn't mean he will play in the NBA.



You make the decisions when appropriate. Deciding now to play on the Sabbath because you might have to play on the Sabbath at some future point because of a job that you may or may not have.

You are one day going to die, so why wouldn't you be comfortable doing that now? (yes, this is total hyperbole, but you can see where I'm going with this).

There are over 300 D1 teams, plus DII, plus NAIA, plus juco...Less than 2% of college basketball players make it to the NBA (60 players or so drafted, 1/3 usually foreigners, another 1/4 never see an actual NBA game). Without a doubt it's the toughest sports league in the world to break into.



A devout LDS family that had to chose between BYU and Utah now has an easier choice, bottom line. However, Duke plays on Sundays, didn't change Jabari going to Duke... (but we're comparing Utah and BYU)



You really would have to take a close look at Pac 12 teams (or any teams that play on sunday for that matter) that have LDS players on them, that quite likely served a mission (in my estimation if the Sabbath is a deal breaker, then most likely they also would serve missions). Exclude those that BYU didn't want or offer and then I think you come down to a small sample. It's that small sample we're talking about... another reason why the NBA shouldn't be a part of the argument. How many temple reccomend holding players you think there are in the league right now? 1-2? I can't imagine it's many more.



The sabbath play thing affects people and families, but for the most part, they're people and families that already are considering BYU... Utah was the other potential destination, even if BYU offered. Now Utah can't put no sabbath play or practice on the table. It's to our advantage, but only with a very few rare families and players, and the majority of those guys, Dave Rose is getting anyhow.

Not to mention the inherent recruiting advantages that comes with both (1) winning more games than you lose, and (2) being seeded above a 9 in your conference tournament.

CougarClaw wrote:
no problem with Sunday play if you're already on a "sports mission."



:gross: :roll:

:lol: Clever.