WCC tourney thread

[MikeWaters]

Vs. LMU

lots of disturbing turnovers. Sloppy. Mika looked like he would rather be playing tiddlywinks. Something is wrong with his head.

Haws' shot from the outside wasn't falling despite some wide open looks.

Moments of poor communication with the zone defense. An Achilles heel all season.

But Collinsworth showed that he is THE MAN on this team. And Winder continues to be strong. A big question is whether we get more of Bad Carlino or if we get some Good Carlino.

Rose needs to show that he can actually exceed expectations for once. His teams always underperform when the lights are the brightest. That's now an established character identity of his program and coaching.

[MikeWaters]

vs. SF

The game almost killed me last night--up til 1am!

My two favorite whipping boys almost did us in last night. Tyler Haws and Coach Rose. Haws was firing up brick after brick as SF did a great job guarding him and Haws could never get comfortable. But he used his savviness to get to the line and without all those points it would have been a losing effort.

Rose made some curious decisions in this game. Towards the end of the first quarter he went with a small lineup. Worthington as the only big. And putting Bartley on Dickerson. And as you might expect, SF went on a run against this lineup. It's not fair to ask a shooting guard to handle a power forward. I didn't get that decision at all. And then at the end of regulation the BYU offense was completely out of sorts. Rose kept calling timeouts but it didn't look to help at all. This was a team that was completely clueless with a coach who seemed powerless to help. What a disaster. BYU lucked out to force an overtime after failing to score over the final six minutes.

The MVP for BYU was Collinsworth. I'm impressed with his recent ability to hit that short range jumper. Big for his game if they have to respect that. He took a couple of dumb shots. But that's ok.

At the end of regulation BYU had Mika, Austin, Carlino, Haws, and Collinsworth on the floor. SF played great defense, and it would end up that the guys with the brief open looks on the perimeter were Austin and Collinsworth. Both non-threats from the outside. Austin because he apparently has the 100% red light on taking shots. And Collinsworth because he just can't shoot. This killed our offense. The other three guys couldn't open with SF clogging the lane. We need a stretch 4 in a bad way. The end of regulation against SF is a preview of what the tourney is going to look like. BYU being completely dysfunctional in the half court.

Proud of Collinsworth hitting those two free throws at the end of the game. That was big. Also Carlino hitting that difficult 12 foot jumper to put BYU ahead, right before all the free throws. In a game where BYU couldn't generate open looks.

Again we saw poor defense from BYU manifested by SF torching BYU from the three point line. But SF just didn't have the fire power to score enough. Just didn't have the personnel.

Looks like BYU and SF may be battling for #2 in the WCC for a good while.

And Rex Walters seems dead set on becoming one of the great villains of college basketball. Maybe he will get a job somewhere and be gone. But he does seem to have issues that would prevent him from being offered a better job.

[MikeWaters]

Luke Worthington played 7 minutes. No rebounds, no points, no assists, no steals, no blocks, and 1 turnover.

He has no business being on the floor.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Luke Worthington played 7 minutes. No rebounds, no points, no assists, no steals, no blocks, and 1 turnover.

He has no business being on the floor.

He's a magnet for fouls to protect Austin and Mika.

[MikeWaters]

vs. Gonzaga. I only watched a couple of minutes of this game due to other commitments.

One play I saw was Luke Worthington going to the perimeter on a pick such that he and another BYU player were at the 3 point line and Sam Dower was all by himself on the block. Led to a wide-open dunk.

Simple question: does BYU look like a well-coached team? Especially, do they look like they are well-coached defenders?

To me the answer is "NO." They look like clueless defenders.

And to top it off we lose our best player to injury. Collinsworth. Those Collinsworth boys have the worst luck. Hopefully not serious. He's literally the future of the program.

Oh well, that's BYU for you.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Archaea

He's a magnet for fouls to protect Austin and Mika.

Worthington committing dumb fouls protects no one.

I'm just sad that the program is down to the extent that someone like Worthington is on the floor at all. Imagine this team without Mika. It's SCARY. It makes me sick to my stomach.

[MikeWaters]

Collinsworth with an ACL.