the loss to Portland
 

I didn't watch the game, but someone on CB said that it was the worst loss in the Rose era (i.e. lowest RPI of opponent).

I read Haddow's post which said that the Portland guards dominated. And he pointed out the contrast with Gonzaga which actually had poor guard play (I mentioned this as well in my review of the game).

I don't like this underperforming team. The players don't play hard all the time and they often play dumb. It is an exasperating team to watch when they are playing dumb.

Honestly, there's not a lot of talent on this team. You have KC--we know his strengths and weaknesses.

I'm getting a little bit more down on Emery than I was before. He's turning into a bit of a one dimensional players. An outside gunner. Where's the defensive effort and prowess that his brother had?

Kaufusi has some physical talent, but he makes ol' Peanut Brain Trent Plaisted seem like Magic Johnson in comparison.

Seljass has shown something. Good shooting, good size. Defense that is not so bad that you want to cry.

Fischer is a good shooter when open. Just can't get open on his own and can't guard anyone.

What do you do with all of this? Do your best and just wait til the talent comes on board next year.

At BYU, this is a consistent refrain, heard every year in football and basketball.

This team appears NIT bound, so yes it is a down year for BYU in the Rose era. There's just not good talent on this roster.

Who are our small forwards? Rose plays a lot of 3 guard lineups.

Ideally, KC would be your small forward. Seljass arguably is a small forward.

Outside of Mika, we haven't had good bigs in a while.

Young Hartsock and Braden Shaw, you wonder if they will ever be good enough to contribute.

I've given up on Aytes. Haddow is speculating he could lose his scholarship.

Davis is an adequate b-grade player. On a good team, he should be coming off the bench and playing less than 20 minutes. But he's not someone that in anyway improves the trajectory of a good team. He's too unathletic and too poor a defender.

Next year maybe it will be different in basketball at least. We'll get to find out if those recruiting stars mean something. To put in perspective, in football we maybe sign one 4-star kid per year in a recruiting class of 15-20 players. At any one time on a roster with 85 scholarships we might have 4-5 four-star players. That's about 5-6%. A decently good P5 program is going to have maybe 25-30%. An Alabama type program is going to have close to 100% 4-star or higher.

Our basketball team has very rarely ever gotten any of these types of players. This year we have 1 -- Nick Emery, with maybe Seljaas counting as #2 as he was a 4-star recruit on one service anyway. Next year even with Seljaas leaving on a mission we will have FIVE of those guys -- almost 40% of the roster: Emery, Mika, Dastrup, TJ Haws, and Yoeli Childs. Imagine if 40% of the football team were 4-star players! We've never seen this at BYU before in any sport.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/ba...sition=&state=

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/ba...sition=&state=

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/ba...sition=&state=

Next year will be interesting. Hopefully we can finally win the WCC.

And I'd like to see these guys compete in the Big 12 (pipe dream). Then me and BlueK will go watch them @TCU.

I've seen BYU games at TCU and Baylor before. TCU was before they were Big 12. Baylor was about 3 years ago. It was funny how little support their b-ball team had. They were coming off an Elite 8 year and had maybe 3,000 fans in their 11 or 12,000 seat arena. It was pathetic. It drove home how much Texas is not a basketball state.

Yoeli Childs, a 4-star incoming freshman for next year just got his ESPN ranking upgraded to #50 nationally. Late bloomer who is really looking great this season and would have attracted some big time offers, but BYU did their job well and got him signed up. He has grown a couple of inches since BYU first started recruiting him. He's a 6-8 big PF with both athleticism and strength. This is the kind of player BYU just doesn't get. He's AA and not LDS. Grew up in Utah and has a lot of LDS friends. Utah dropped the ball in a big way with this guy, which also makes me happy. He would have been a natural for them. He was on their radar but they just moved too slowly while Rose won him over. It will be a lot different type of team next year with Mika, Dastrup, Childs and Davis playing as our frontcourt.

[thumbs up gif]

This teams needs an athleticism upgrade in the worst way. The Utah game was evidence of that.