Good win against Princeton
 

as BYU dominated with Mika in the paint. Many other pieces need improvement.

I forgot about the game and only watched the last 2 minutes. didn't learn anything.

BYU won because Mika dominated a small team. He has drastically improved his FT shooting ability. Several of the other players looked out of sinc. If everybody gets on the same page, this could be a very good team, but we won't know because the best two teams remaining on schedule are Gonzaga and St. Mary's. The rest of the schedule is unimpressive.

Dave Rose has been really bad about developing rotations.

Let's watch this year for
1) the guy in the first half mysteriously getting tons of minutes despite poor play
2) the guy with great potential/ability, especially defense, who doesn't get any minutes until the end of the season, and then transfers out after the season is over.

Player #1 is usually a white stiff. Player #2 is usually African-American.

No signs of either of these in the last game. Rose played a tight rotation of 7 players, which is unusual for his teams that early in the season. Princeton was a must win though, so he kept the best players on the court and it worked. Princeton will go under the radar for the casual fan, but they're going to be a top 40 rpi team. They return their best 7 players from last year from a team that went 22-7, plus a 6-9 guy who sat out last year with an injury, but who was their best player two years ago. Mika got him to foul out.

No one this year fits the #2 description as far as I can tell. Bryant didn't play all that well but he's still coming back from two months away with a knee injury. Before the injury a lot of people were saying he was one of the best players on the team.

Both USC and Colorado are supposed to be middle of the pack/NCAA bubble Pac 12 teams. Illinois may be around the same level. We'll see.

This game showed who Rose wants to play when it counts. The 7 man rotation he used is pretty solid, and the best talent we've had together for at least 4-5 years. I think that number goes up to 8 if Dastrup comes along this year and gets into playing shape. He's going to have to get other guys on the team some time to help them develop, but it's going to be against teams like we play over the next few games. What you describe is what happens when there are obvious glaring holes in the lineup and he's just plugging players into them hoping someone will step up. That won't be necessary on this team. If some of those bench guys come in during the first half in the game against an opponent like we have tonight, I don't think that's the same thing.

That may explain his rotational problems. He hasn't had a complete team in terms of talent, ever. He's always had holes.

I like this team though.

5, Mika. Best center we've had in a long, long while, maybe ever. Back ups, Dastrup and Kafusi. Dastrup has upside on the offensive end and Kafusi has five fouls with some defensive potential.

4. Childs and Davis splitting time. Davis not being an offensive focus is a big upside as Davis tends to be a black hole. Aytes may provide some minutes here.

3. Bryant, or Haws? We may be weak at this position until Bryant gets his feet back under him. Aytes?

2. Emery.

1. LJ Rose. He is a huge get for us this year.

We don't have a lot of talented back ups for the small forward, guard positions. But the first seven are as talented as BYU has ever had.