Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
I hadn't seen BYU play in a while prior to the Gonzaga game.
So I am not a good judge of recent trends.
I do think BYU get a little lucky in that game. Without looking at stats, even account for the defense, I think we had more shots fall than we would expect, and Gonzaga the reverse. There was a little bit of chance/luck at play.
I also think that there is no way that Gonzaga is the 3rd best team in the country.
As much as the win builds us up, it also cuts down Gonzaga significantly. If Gonzaga can't deal with the defense of Josh Sharp, and can't deal with the BYU's small ball, then maybe that is a recipe to beat them. An early Gonzaga exit from the tourney wouldn't surprise me.
But as we say, Gonzaga has issues, so does every other team.
Rose is finally finding some rhythm with his rotation. The guys aren't deferring to Haws to huck up shots. Some of the poor defenders are riding the pine (Nixon, Toolson), replaced by better defenders. Guess what? Defense creates offense. Hard to run off made baskets. Kaufusi has improved on defense. I've never liked Halford's shot, too many moving parts for him to be consistent, but it's working now. I like how the guys are playing aggressive man to man. Remember, I was complaining about last year's Rose zone. Hated that. Gave up so many looks and buckets.
We just need to win a couple games here in the conference tourney. If we have another bad loss we are out for sure. And I think SMC would be a bad loss.
Next year will be fun too.
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BYU only shot 42%, so it wasn't really BYU's great performance on offense. BYU did play well defensively and they rebounded well. Like you said, the defense was key at important moments which meant that a high percentage of BYU's points came from something good the defense did.
As far as Gonzaga goes, I agree they're not the 3rd best team in the country, but the human polls are meaningless in basketball. What matters as far as the committee goes is their #8 ranking on the rpi. And whether or not the rpi is a good measure or not, it's what the committee uses. No matter if they're really great or not, they are good enough for a win on their court to be pretty impressive.
BYU is now showing up on most brackets, but to stay there they'll have to win their first two tournament games. In the tournament BYU can't afford a loss to SMC because at this point the differences between bubble teams is razor thin, so any top 100 win or any loss can move a team several spots on the chart. That said, St. Mary's hasn't been playing very well and with how BYU has been playing it really shouldn't be that close on a neutral court.
http://www.bracketmatrix.com/