At Gonzaga

[MikeWaters]

The first time in a long time that I had knots in my stomach for an entire game.

Just going to briefly comment here because I need to get to bed.

1. Great to see the Cougars come out and be aggressive. But they weren't dumb aggressive. They were smart aggressive. They were taking their shots when they were there, not hesitating.

2. The defensive effort was vastly improved compared to prior games I watched. It's been a while since I watched them. When playing man to man, a lot more pressure on the ball now. Kaufusi looks vastly improved on defense. Protecting the rim. Not jumping and hacking. Most importantly, not making dumb fouls. He still has that desire and tendency to make the dumb foul, but now he is mostly holding back. Like when he missed the free throw and runs to the baseline on the rebounder. Earlier this year he would have chosen to make a dumb frustration foul.

3. Worthington. Hopefully we will never see him in a BYU uniform again after this season. He's hopeless and dumb as a pile of rocks. Might be a great kid, but I can't stand his game and it's lack of improvement on the defensive end.

4. Goes without saying that Halford and Collinsworth were nails.

5. I was disappointed with Winder's defense. Maybe still has lingering injury.

6. Haws choke job tonight and his history of choke jobs were one of two things that left a bad taste in my mouth tonight. For an 88% FT shooter to miss the two most important free throws of his career. That's a choke job. His history of not showing up when it mattered is why he won't be revered down the line.

7. The other thing that really pissed me off was Rose's coaching at the end. The slowdown, the guys not doing ANYTHING until there was no time on the clock. Shot-clock violation out of a time out. Putting Anson Winder on the block for free throw rebounding (it didn't burn us, but could have). Rose is at his worst when the coaching really matters. Guys won despite Rose, when it came to the last 3 minutes.

8. Ok, now that I got that out of the way. FINALLY a game where we had no chance and we came in and won. FINALLY. Feels great. And I hope this leads to a tourney bid. I'm happy for the entire team and the coaching staff. Esp. happy with the seniors.

9. Wish Rose hadn't gone away from Sharp so much in 2nd half. But maybe that was to keep Wiltjer off the floor?

10. More Rose bashing. Glad to see Sharp, Bartley, Andrus on the floor. Glad to see Nixon on the bench. I just don't get Rose's personnel decisions over the course of this season. I don't know why he stuck with the no-defense flat-footed shooters so long (Nixon and Toolson). I don't know why he invested so much in someone with no basketball brain--Worthington. On the other hand, I need to credit him for Kaufusi's improvement as well as Halford's confidence.

11. One more thing. I thought the Collinsworth foul with 7 seconds left on the reach was a HORRIBLE decision on his part. You don't want to stop the clock when a guy is 28 feet away with this back to the basket. Now maybe it wasn't a foul and we'd be patting him on the back for getting a steal. But you just can't risk a reach in that moment. Ended up working out, but gosh, it was a series of poor decisions and execution at the end of the game.

[MikeWaters]

Wiltjer bricks wide-open 3 at 4:02
Halford fouled on layup attempt at 3:56
[viagra commercial]
Halford 1 of 2, 66-59
Pangos missed 3 at 3:41, rebounded by Sabonis, layup by Wesley assisted by Pangos, 66-61 at 3:35
Rose goes to slowdown, Winder holds ball untl 12 seconds lefts on shotclock, turns ball over at 3:04, Collinsworth bats ball from behind at 3:02, Collinsworth layup at 2:52. Fouled. And 1 is good at 2:52, 69-61.
Held ball at 2:33 on Sabonis rebound, ball goes to BYU.
BYU goes into time-wasting mode, starts action w/ 7 seconds left on shotclock on pass from Collinsworth to Halford.
Halford missed floater at 2:00.
Confusion by Winder and Collinsworth, Bell left wide open at deep 3, hits at 1:51, 69-64.
BYU in slowdown again. BYU call TO w/ 14 seconds left on shot clock, 1:23.
Ball inbounded to Collinsworth. No urgency, pased to Winder with 7 seconds left. Passes to Halford with 3 seconds left. BYU never got within 26 feet of the basket. No short attempt. 1:10.
Wesley fouled on layup attempt at 50 seconds left (bad call). Hits both, 69-66.
Break press Kaufusi gets ball with 41 seconds left, passes out.
Collinsworth starts action with 9 seconds left 35 feet from basket, misses shot, but puts in rebound w/ 18 seconds left. 71-66.
Pangos misses 3 attempt 14 seconds left. Gonzaga long rebound by non-shooter Dranginis 25 feet from basket. Collinsworth promptly fouled him w/ reach. Hits both FT, 71-68, 7.8 sec left. Winder on the block, blocking out FT.
BYU Timeout.
Inbound to Haws, fouled at 6.6 sec. Missed both FT.
Bartley fouls McClellan at half-court with 2.6 sec left.
Rose subs in Kaufusi and Andrus for rebounding. He hits both FT.
BYU does not call TO, Bartley inbounds to Andrus in corner. Interestingly, if you look at the play, Haws ran away from the inbounder. He wanted no part of getting the ball again. 1.5 sec left.
Andrus hits both FT.
Wiltjer msses half-court shot attempt at buzzer, hits off iron.

[MikeWaters]

Takeaways:

1. The slowdown plays all looked like disasters. Often waited too long. Had no play that they went to, they looked confused. Got a little lucky with Collinsworth getting his own board and putback. That was crucial. But you can't credit Rose for that.

2. The TO on the shot clock after the TO was horrible. Neither Collinsworth nor Winder wanted anything to do with that shot, and that put Halford in an impossible position. Inexcusable. Again, an indication that the players had no idea what they were doing out of the time out.

3. Having Winder on the low block on the Gonzaga FT. I just can't agree with that. The risk of not getting the rebound is too high.

4. I agree with getting Haws the inbound so he can shoot FTs. That's a no-brainer. But who would have thought, 3 months ago, that of the 4 most crucial free throws of the season, that Haws would miss 2, and that Andrus (ANDRUS!!!) would be in the game and hit both. No one could have predicted that.

5. Again, the collinsworth foul was horrible decision. Gonzaga was going to have to burn at least 4 seconds to get a shot off. He stopped the clock by fouling a guy who was NOT going to put the ball on the floor and take a shot.

6. I like having Bartley inbound with 2 seconds left, because you don't want him shooting the free throws. (and who would have thought he would be on the floor against Gonzaga at the end of the game 3 months ago!!!). I guess I can agree with not calling your last TO prior to that, reserving it for if Bartley couldn't get the ball in. I don't agree with getting Andrus the ball, even though he's a good shooter. He's a freshman with only a few FT attempts.

7. If you want to the best scorer in BYU history and you have designs to be a Wooden finalist, you CANNOT exclude yourself from getting that inbounds pass with 2 seconds left. Very disappoint to see Haws defer like that to a freshman post!!!

After rewatching the end of the game, I still don't like how it played out. We should have done better, and we almost choked it away as a result. Ball bounced our way a couple of times. But I'm not as upset about it as I was last night.

[BlueK]

In terms of the national rankings we just had our biggest win for the program in the last 34 years, and at Gonzaga where they haven't lost a conference game in 5 years. Obviously we made some mistakes in the last few minutes to allow Gonzaga to narrow the lead at the end, but I would argue that great teams cause those issues for opponents. It's what BYU regularly did to their opponents in 2010 and 2011. It would be one thing if this happened at home against Santa Clara. It's a different animal in Spokane. Just enjoy it. BYU did a ton of things well to even get to where they needed to protect a lead in the final minutes.

[MikeWaters]

BYU is rarely going to win against good teams when they play with less poise and smarts than the other team at the end of the game.

[BlueK]

That's likely true. But at least we've stopped playing poorly at the end of games against bad teams during this six game winning streak. Sure, you can identify lots of areas where BYU still needs to improve. But if you look at how BYU has played as a whole in these last six wins and compare that to how they played the first time they faced the exact same team, it's really not even debateable that BYU is playing significantly better right now. Teams that could score 80 on us in January were struggling to get over 60 in Feburary. Is the improvement enough to translate into doing something good in the post-season? We'll have to see. It's already translated into beating a really good team at the end of the regular season.

[MikeWaters]

I hadn't seen BYU play in a while prior to the Gonzaga game.

So I am not a good judge of recent trends.

I do think BYU get a little lucky in that game. Without looking at stats, even account for the defense, I think we had more shots fall than we would expect, and Gonzaga the reverse. There was a little bit of chance/luck at play.

I also think that there is no way that Gonzaga is the 3rd best team in the country.

As much as the win builds us up, it also cuts down Gonzaga significantly. If Gonzaga can't deal with the defense of Josh Sharp, and can't deal with the BYU's small ball, then maybe that is a recipe to beat them. An early Gonzaga exit from the tourney wouldn't surprise me.

But as we say, Gonzaga has issues, so does every other team.

Rose is finally finding some rhythm with his rotation. The guys aren't deferring to Haws to huck up shots. Some of the poor defenders are riding the pine (Nixon, Toolson), replaced by better defenders. Guess what? Defense creates offense. Hard to run off made baskets. Kaufusi has improved on defense. I've never liked Halford's shot, too many moving parts for him to be consistent, but it's working now. I like how the guys are playing aggressive man to man. Remember, I was complaining about last year's Rose zone. Hated that. Gave up so many looks and buckets.

We just need to win a couple games here in the conference tourney. If we have another bad loss we are out for sure. And I think SMC would be a bad loss.

Next year will be fun too.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I hadn't seen BYU play in a while prior to the Gonzaga game.

So I am not a good judge of recent trends.

I do think BYU get a little lucky in that game. Without looking at stats, even account for the defense, I think we had more shots fall than we would expect, and Gonzaga the reverse. There was a little bit of chance/luck at play.

I also think that there is no way that Gonzaga is the 3rd best team in the country.

As much as the win builds us up, it also cuts down Gonzaga significantly. If Gonzaga can't deal with the defense of Josh Sharp, and can't deal with the BYU's small ball, then maybe that is a recipe to beat them. An early Gonzaga exit from the tourney wouldn't surprise me.

But as we say, Gonzaga has issues, so does every other team.

Rose is finally finding some rhythm with his rotation. The guys aren't deferring to Haws to huck up shots. Some of the poor defenders are riding the pine (Nixon, Toolson), replaced by better defenders. Guess what? Defense creates offense. Hard to run off made baskets. Kaufusi has improved on defense. I've never liked Halford's shot, too many moving parts for him to be consistent, but it's working now. I like how the guys are playing aggressive man to man. Remember, I was complaining about last year's Rose zone. Hated that. Gave up so many looks and buckets.

We just need to win a couple games here in the conference tourney. If we have another bad loss we are out for sure. And I think SMC would be a bad loss.

Next year will be fun too.

Rose has done a good job juggling lineups and dealing with injuries. They didn't know until February that Aytes and Austin wouldn't return. They lost KC, CK, Winder who hasn't recovered yet and even Haws yet the rotations have improved. CK has improved from horrible to serviceable. Which emphasizes how limited Worthington is. Pope deserves credit for improving very marginal talent.

What will BYU do for outside shooting next year?

[MikeWaters]

Fischer for one. Jordan Chatman, who knows if he is any good. Nick Emery. FBIV.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I hadn't seen BYU play in a while prior to the Gonzaga game.

So I am not a good judge of recent trends.

I do think BYU get a little lucky in that game. Without looking at stats, even account for the defense, I think we had more shots fall than we would expect, and Gonzaga the reverse. There was a little bit of chance/luck at play.

I also think that there is no way that Gonzaga is the 3rd best team in the country.

As much as the win builds us up, it also cuts down Gonzaga significantly. If Gonzaga can't deal with the defense of Josh Sharp, and can't deal with the BYU's small ball, then maybe that is a recipe to beat them. An early Gonzaga exit from the tourney wouldn't surprise me.

But as we say, Gonzaga has issues, so does every other team.

Rose is finally finding some rhythm with his rotation. The guys aren't deferring to Haws to huck up shots. Some of the poor defenders are riding the pine (Nixon, Toolson), replaced by better defenders. Guess what? Defense creates offense. Hard to run off made baskets. Kaufusi has improved on defense. I've never liked Halford's shot, too many moving parts for him to be consistent, but it's working now. I like how the guys are playing aggressive man to man. Remember, I was complaining about last year's Rose zone. Hated that. Gave up so many looks and buckets.

We just need to win a couple games here in the conference tourney. If we have another bad loss we are out for sure. And I think SMC would be a bad loss.

Next year will be fun too.

BYU only shot 42%, so it wasn't really BYU's great performance on offense. BYU did play well defensively and they rebounded well. Like you said, the defense was key at important moments which meant that a high percentage of BYU's points came from something good the defense did.

As far as Gonzaga goes, I agree they're not the 3rd best team in the country, but the human polls are meaningless in basketball. What matters as far as the committee goes is their #8 ranking on the rpi. And whether or not the rpi is a good measure or not, it's what the committee uses. No matter if they're really great or not, they are good enough for a win on their court to be pretty impressive.

BYU is now showing up on most brackets, but to stay there they'll have to win their first two tournament games. In the tournament BYU can't afford a loss to SMC because at this point the differences between bubble teams is razor thin, so any top 100 win or any loss can move a team several spots on the chart. That said, St. Mary's hasn't been playing very well and with how BYU has been playing it really shouldn't be that close on a neutral court.

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/