2 cents on Philosophy

[jeffyds]

I find it interesting. The King is Gonzaga. St Mary’s knows that. They recruit and play to defeat all of the other teams. That is why St Mary’s almost never beats Gonzaga. Now on the other hand BYU constantly thinks about Gonzaga and how to defeat them. They have had fairly good success. But, They continually struggle against teams they should not loose to. Why? St Mary’s is a great example of discipline. BYU is a great example of helter skelter. Look at the way they play. St Mary’s understands that Basketball is a team sport. They all know their roles. With BYU you see quite a bit of hero ball and lack of discipline. Haws is an interesting player. He has good skills and does not usually try to over do himself. At times he is an assassin. He has the ability to make the other player foul him by setting him up. When you play a 10 second shot clock, what does that mean for assists, rebounding and yes drawing fouls. It does not happen very often, does it. You do get turnovers, missed shots, and charging fouls. You have to play within the flow of the game. You take what the game gives you. St Mary’s is really good at rebounding. They emphasize it. mens and womens. Does BYU have what it takes to be a top 25 team? In my ratings you need a 3.75. Scoring in this ratings comes by topics. Great players-up to 1.0. I would give a 1.0 to the guy in the middle by the name of Eric. There is a certain Point guard that is quite good but inconsistent and lacks discipline and forces it a lot. Does he get any points as a great player. maybe .25. Are there any points deserved for defense? Wow, I don’t know. Occasionally. Team defense is essential. They are pretty good offensively. Do you give them points for Offense. I would say about .5. Right now it puts them at about 1.75. How about rebounding? I don’t think that they crash the boards very well most of the time. You have to dominate the boards to get points here. What about assists. When you force everything you don’t assist well. The 10 second shot clock is not going to make you a champion. I see really good potential and they are just learning the inside out game. Are they good at the give and go? Not really. Basketball is a game of math. There is geometry and angles galore. How good are these guys at math. Can they calculate the problem for winning? Are they about a 2.0 as a team? Do they know how to play team defense? Frankly Nick Emery has great potential but he needs someone who will slap him and teach him some personal discipline. He needs to go to a point guard camp and learn the position. Ask some scouts what they think and I suspect they will confirm that concept for him. I like the coach I think he is really good. I also think Emery is stubborn and until he can find self disciple he will never be the player he has the potential to be. Can they get there next year? There is great potential and I do have hope. This is a team game and without team defense you don’t win championship and you loose to people you should not loose to. For a 2.0 to 2.25 team they did well this year. Can they be a 3.75 team. Absolutely yes, but a couple of players are going to have to reboot. Buy the way it takes about 4.25 to be in line for a championship. I am speaking both about comparisons in your conference and nationally, How you rate against the teams in your conference and how you rate against the teams nationally are two different things. In Conference, Gonzaga is probably about 4.5. Nationally- somewhere between 3.75 and 4.0. They finish in the final 8 and depending on the block they are given maybe final four, if the committee is good to them. When they lost to BYU I think they may not get the selection to get them to the final four. The committee now is questioning how good they are. Remember, they come from a perceived weak conference. The NIT will be good for BYU. Hopefully they will get 4 games.
Jeff