Game thoughts and state of the program
 

I'm so upset I'm listening to my Johnny Cash collection now. I think Simon and Garfunkel's next.

I feel so frustrated. We've been waiting for a first round opponent that didn't play like a top 10 team for over ten years. We get one and we lay an egg.

The Wesley year against Cincy the game was like a #40 team playing a #15 team. The Hansen/Haffa year it was like a #25 team playing a #10 team. And the Bigs/Haffa year was like a #12 team playing a #8 team. This was more like #42 vs #40.

Why the zone? It killed us. We couldn't rebound, we got out of position and fouled, and they shot the 3 over it.

I like Plaisted a lot, as a player and his character. But he's got to step it up his jr and sr seasons. Keena and Rose saved our butts. Thanks guys. Thanks to all the seniors. It was a great season, and one game doesn't change it, but ARGHH it's frustrating.

Rose is a good coach. Two time MWC coach of the year and he's obviously got a lot out of his talent those two years. But his D is troubling. We've come full circle from where we were 8 years ago. Cleve's first few years our offense was atrocious but the D was spectacular at times. Schroyer was the "defensive coordinator" and did a great job. You remember him barking out defensive instructions voice booming throughout the MC. After he left, our D got worse little by little each year. (Side note, I always thought Schroyer was a coach on the fast track to sucess, he got his own head job at Portland, and I thought he was doing well, and the next thing I hear he's Cleve's assistant again. What happened?) But also during that stretch, our offense has gotten better and better. D seems to be easier to coach than O, so why can't we get our D working again? That's got to be an emphasis for Rose.

I mainly feel frustrated because I don't know when this opportunity's going to come around again. I expect next year to be a 20 win season, and possibly if they overachieve they could make the tourney, but not in a situation where we have this good of a chance to win a game. I don't see two years from now being that much better either.

Plaisted is the key the next two years. I hope he does what it takes to get his game where it should be, given his talent.

Schroyer actually did an amazing job and left Portland St on his own accord. In addition to being a great coach Schroyer is amazing with the media. He knows how to get fans pumped up about his teams, the media here in Portland was in love with the guy.

He is at Fresno St as an associate head coach and will be promoted once Cleveland retires. So he is still on the fast track to being a head coach. If the Utes hired him for our open position, I would not be disappointed.

We really need to play an active style defense
 

If Rose wants to go small, we need a defense that takes risks and entices opponents to take jump shots. Cummard and Plaisted give us some good athleticism, and their strength is playing defense on the move. We should never, ever play zone. We are too short to play zone and effectively cover the wings, we are also too short to have our guys standing around trying to outleap opponents for rebounds. No rebounds, no fastbreaks.

The major difference from when Schroyer was running it (and Rose for a couple years after--Goat is correct in stating that Rose was in charge of the D when Schroyer left and it was still good for a couple years and continued to resemble the Cleve/Schroyer D, however I believe Schroyer was the brains behind it and the further we got from him and the players he trained, the worse it got) and now is the help D. Schroyer's D's rotated very quickly. They were susceptible to good big men, but every D is. They helped inside and they rotated quickly. This year's team rotated like snails--which of course will kill you in a zone.

My memory is fading fast, but didn't BYU go into the zone after getting killed on the pick and role at the top of the key: Plaisted would switch and that would leave Doehlman (or one of their other big guys open for a three). Not saying it was the right decision, but I can see why Rose tried it.

Our D was brutal last night whether it be man guarding that high screen or zone. I understand going to the zone but I thought we stayed in it too much. We're not a zone team and we showed it last night.

It is actually the pick and roll, and not role (says the king of typos), but in general I agree with you.

This whole thing is very demoralizing (in a transient sort of way). All I wanted was a single game. Just one game. Those two floaters by their PG at the end of the game were like daggers in the heart.

Role:) . Well done on my part. Actually I suppose it wasn't much of a roll most of the time either. More like a pick and pop or pick and stand around at the three point line.

Agreed.

Just one little game. We might not have this opportunity for another decade.

Next year, if we luck into the Tourney, we'll be a high seed with no chance of winning.

BYU will NOT win a Tourney game until it plays better defense and discovers some real D1 guards. The team has some talent but plays defense very inadequately.