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Old 03-08-2015, 07:16 PM   #1
MikeWaters
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Default vs. Santa Clara in the WCC tournament

BYU previously beat SCU 81-46 and 78-57. They came in 14-17. Their star player, Clark, shoots 37%.

So how in the world did they almost lose to this team? They regressed to the mean. They started playing offense and defense like is more of their prior history. They got killed on the dribble and didn't rotate and show on shooters, i.e. Brownridge. And BYU only made 22 field goals.

Now, mind you, this is a team with only two offensive threats. Brownridge and Clark were 18 of 35. The rest of their team was 9 of 24. They have no bigs of any sort of any quality.

So what does Rose decide? He decides that he can't stay in front of the SCU guards, so let's run zone. Didn't work well.

This BYU team has really only two plus defenders. That's Kaufusi and Collinsworth. Haws and Fischer are minus defenders. In fact, who got blown off the dribble at the end of the game by Clark? Haws.

Winder is also a minus defender. He's hurt and as a result he sucks.

If BYU had any kind of decent front line, should have dominated inside. But tied SCU on rebounding. Sharp, Neilsen, and Andrus didn't score. Kaufusi only had one FG. Honestly, it's embarrassing.

Rose did put Sharp in for a few minutes in the 2nd half, so he didn't entirely go to the four guard lineup with Collinsworth at power forward. But Sharp had only 12 minutes.

The Collinsworth early fouls really hurt. Another case of an experienced player making dumb decisions that hurts his team. Was the reach really worth it? Move your feet!

I honestly don't have much confidence in Rose's decision making. Gonzaga really struggled yesterday and in my opinion they are VERY overrated. Their three stars are three white guys who wouldn't start for the other top 7 team in the country. None of their three most effective guys have NBA careers ahead of them IMO.

What does this say? Gonzaga ain't all that, and frankly, BYU ain't all that. BYU is very beatable. By bad teams. It's just disappointing when you see Rose struggle despite having more talent and experience with his players.

Everyone has been so happy with Halford, but he is regressing to the mean. His ugly shot....is still ugly. That wind-up just doesn't translate to a replicable action and result.

Worthington didn't get any minutes yesterday. Another example of head scratching wasted time and development by Rose and staff.

But it is what it is. I support Rose and think we should keep him as long as he will stay. Unfortunately he still has a deer-in-headlights approach to important games.

It's really too bad this team doesn't have a good power forward. Collinsworth has been playing point-forward. But, they could use someone who is a defensive presence and a threat to score in the paint. Duh. Not saying anything new.

Again, BYU didn't play particularly well in crunch time. Guys clueless in the half court. Bartley so damn casual it hurts, not even bothering to catch the ball in the most important moment. Halford dribbling into a double team and turning it over and giving up a layup in the crucial moment. At least there was not a moment where BYU inexplicably didn't guard someone in the last minute like against Gonzaga. Haws saved the season for another day.

You have to tip your hat to the SCU coach, considering he was playing with only 2 players of any quality, pretty remarkable that his team came within a whisker of beating BYU.
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