Utah basketball pet peeve
 

I coach city league and competitive league youth basketball. The passive style of play is a major pet peeve. The culture is for most teams to drop back in a tight zone or sagging man to man, with little pressure on the ball. This culture is reinforced by ref's who come to expect that style of play and whistle up the slightest swipe at the ball, bump on a man driving with the ball, etc. It's no wonder that BYU acts like they're playing a different sport when they go up against a pressure defense team.

What the ??

Are you seriously arguing that the BYU's difficulty with pressure defense is a result of passive play in Utah youth leagues? That's just absurd.

How many of BYU's players grew up playing in Utah? Sam Burgess?

Yeah I know. Even as I wrote that I know you can't draw the line from x to y. But on a macro 20 year look, I think it might be part of the problem.

It also shows in the fans--not that they have an impact on the team's play. We get into a game like UNLV and lesser extent Xavier, and BYU fans think our guys are getting mauled and blame it on officiating, when in reality that is how the game is played in a lot of places across the country.

You make a good point here - BYU needs to fight back. Playing more physically may have given the Y a win last night.

Ironically, I remember several years ago when BYU played Duke in the tournament out in Maui, that the devil....errr...Coach K complained afterward (despite his team winning the game) that BYU played too physically. He didn't like that his pretty boys got roughed up.

How many of BYU's starting 5 are from Utah?

LDS culture is simply too soft. A generalization, but the emphasis on soft, compassionate service, while good in life, is a lousy attitude for sports.

If we had more of a hard core knock the crap out of the opposition attitude, you wouldn't have seen the pansy assed play of last night. There really is no answer, as our culture generates more benefits than detriments, but it won't generate the hard as rocks types it takes to win big time contact sporting events.

"Pansy assed"? BYU didn't look like a bunch of pansy asses to me. They led most of the game. They had a 5 minute stretch where they played particularly poorly and that cost them the game. That hardly amounts to being pansy assed.

Yeah, I was disappointed in us losing our last two games despite having decent 2nd half leads, but man, some of the overreaction about this is beyond ridiculous. Your lugubriousness truly knows no bounds.