Impressions so far

[MikeWaters]

This team is not going to win the WCC, that is for certain.

They can compete for a tourney bid, with the hopes that the WCC is at least a 2 bid conference.

A lot of our hopes for the season ride on Kyle Collinsworth's health. He's been trotted out in a big old knee brace (I can't recall ever seeing a player in a offensive lineman knee brace before). And he looks slow, can't cut. Can't explode. Still can't shoot. I'm really wondering if they have brought him back too early. If Colinsworth can't move well, he will be a shell of his former self. A lot is riding on that.

Haws has reworked his body, lost weight. Still looks prtty much like the same ol Haws to me, maybe more vertical. He's not going to get as many shots, as hopefully the team will be more balanced this year. And frankly Haws was a ball and shot hog last year. Took many bad shots, but it was generally felt like that was the best option. What do you do when you don't have any guards at the 1 or 2 who can shoot? He will still be a defensive liability at the small forward position.

Chase Fischer. Intriguing. Looks to be the shooter we have needed at the 2. Will be interesting to see what his defense looks like against the better teams.

Luke Worthington looks like he has improved confidence. Appears to be able to make a layup. Looks a little more athletic on D. He's your under-sized scrapper who will hopefully stay out of foul trouble, play decent D, block out and get some defensive rebounds. You don't go to the NCAAs on the backs of Luke Worthingtons.

I thinking about what this team added, it's all about Chase. There's not much else to write home about. Kaufusi adds some size and relative athleticism. But he is raw, going to be prone to bad fouls, and doesn't have the body control to contribute on offense (i.e. put backs).

So the real key to this season will be about the coaching. Can Rose get these guys to play defense? It seemed like Rose went through a phase where he said "screw it" in regard to D, let's just play some zone and hope for the best. That's not going to cut it. So far this season we are seeing more commitment to man-to-man. At least against this bad competition. That's good. That is what he should be doing. You can't run on offense if you don't get stops.

[MikeWaters]

I had made a post about Dalton Nixon and what that says about Rose's recruits. on Cougarboard. I got a 24 hour suspension for being too negative. That's against the board rules to be too negative. Not complaining. Just a different way to run a board.

In short, I have my doubts that Dalton Nixon can be a player who makes any kind of contribution. He's too slow to guard a 3 or 4. And he's too small to guard at the 4, given his level of strength and athleticism.

On the other hand I read an article on him, and he was a big contributor to a good team (Orem) for at least 3 years, maybe 4. He was like the district player of the year as a sophomore. Like first-team all-state for 2 years. Yet he strikes me as in a different league than most of the other players for BYU.

To me this is worrisome. Two years in a row Rose has taken a player that is highly suspect (Worthington and Nixon). That kid from the Carolinas who left the team...forgetting his name. LDS and black. Played the 2. Good athleticism, but very raw and not much of a shot. At least he had athleticism and could guard his position.

And I grant that Worthington looks marginally better this season. I like that he's a bulldog and plays hard.

But I'm not sure about this trend. This roster is short of stars or even potential stars (for BYU's standards).

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I had made a post about Dalton Nixon and what that says about Rose's recruits. on Cougarboard. I got a 24 hour suspension for being too negative. That's against the board rules to be too negative. Not complaining. Just a different way to run a board.

In short, I have my doubts that Dalton Nixon can be a player who makes any kind of contribution. He's too slow to guard a 3 or 4. And he's too small to guard at the 4, given his level of strength and athleticism.

On the other hand I read an article on him, and he was a big contributor to a good team (Orem) for at least 3 years, maybe 4. He was like the district player of the year as a sophomore. Like first-team all-state for 2 years. Yet he strikes me as in a different league than most of the other players for BYU.

To me this is worrisome. Two years in a row Rose has taken a player that is highly suspect (Worthington and Nixon). That kid from the Carolinas who left the team...forgetting his name. LDS and black. Played the 2. Good athleticism, but very raw and not much of a shot. At least he had athleticism and could guard his position.

And I grant that Worthington looks marginally better this season. I like that he's a bulldog and plays hard.

But I'm not sure about this trend. This roster is short of stars or even potential stars (for BYU's standards).

I like how Rose molds whatever he has, which frequently isn't much.

The team is highly unlikely to win the WCC. Gonzaga should be a shoe-in for that. Otherwise, BYU should be the next best.

I like Haws' improved play and Fischer is a pleasant surprise. Winder is more confident and will continue to be valuable. Defensively, Austin will be there but not much else. It will be a learning year, stretching over until the best Utah recruits return from missions.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying.

[BlueK]

Not winning the WCC isn't that big of a deal to me if Gonzaga proves to be as ridiculously good as they appear to be right now. The NCAA tournament is what matters and BYU just needs to pick up enough good wins to get in.

With SDSU only having 22 points at the half right now against CSU Bakersfield, I think BYU wins on Monday. Their offense clearly has major problems. Not that BYU's defense doesn't but I can't believe CSU Bakersfield's defense is the main reason SDSU can't score tonight.

[MikeWaters]

Supposedly Haws worked on extending his range to the 3 point line. But he's been firing up some bricks.

He is shooting 27% from the 3, and many of those were wide open. Last year he shot 40% on about 3 attempts per game. I expect the number to go up this year, but so far, no bueno.

We are going to miss Mika I think.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I had made a post about Dalton Nixon and what that says about Rose's recruits. on Cougarboard. I got a 24 hour suspension for being too negative. That's against the board rules to be too negative. Not complaining. Just a different way to run a board.

I wondered if that's what happened to that thread. What you were posting and your tone there were remarkably tame compared to the majority of the stuff on there. I'm finally done with posting on that site. The weird thing is that so many threads that are way more negative than yours stay on there forever.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by BlueK

I wondered if that's what happened to that thread. What you were posting and your tone there were remarkably tame compared to the majority of the stuff on there. I'm finally done with posting on that site. The weird thing is that so many threads that are way more negative than yours stay on there forever.

I don't care. I'm way past the quaint idea of "fairness". That ended when I decided to take back control of CG and not cede management decisions to the proletariat. What's the use of running a site that you don't like?

But yeah, sometimes I take a strident tone that gets people's goat, while at the same time providing an honest, reasonable opinion. That is considered "trolling".

But back to basketball...our team has problems. But so do most teams. So it's going to be interesting to see how the Cougs compete against better teams. Whether this team folds or does well.

Anyway, it's good to have you here BlueK. Another person to talk sports, and your opinions are valued.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

But back to basketball...our team has problems. But so do most teams. So it's going to be interesting to see how the Cougs compete against better teams. Whether this team folds or does well.

That's what makes this game so intriguing. You have an SDSU team that hasn't allowed anything from opposing offenses, albeit against three bad or at best very mediocre offensive teams, while at the same time playing extemely poorly on offense themselves. That's understandable against Utah, but not when talking about CS Northridge and CS Bakersfield. One thing that is interesting is that their opponents have put up a bunch of three point shots, so without having seen their games it makes me think SDSU's defense is designed to take away the inside and shoot from distance. I assume none of their three opponents so far tried to run or push anything in transistion. For sure Utah didn't.

Then for BYU you have a team that is scoring like crazy but also giving up a lot of points. SDSU will also try to slow the game way down, and those styles of games tend to lead to close games. It could be very interesting.