Can’t thank Alex Barcello enough for staying one more year even when his Pro stock was sky high from last season. Dude is a rock star.
Lossing our two big men just killed our chances for a big year and any hype that Barcello was going to get. Did not hear a single complaint from possibly our biggest transfer in school history. So a big thank you, may all your pro dreams come true!
Te’ Jon Lucas, thank you as well for choosing BYU. Your court vision and getting to the basket was such a Monster asset to the team this year. You certainly upgraded our talent rich team. May your dreams also come true.
Gideon George, Baxter and Harward are all listed as Seniors but have a covid year left. George is set for a big year. We still don’t know if Baxter or Harward will be on the roster next year although Baxter has stated he has retired, seeing at the NITs made me ask the, “What if”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Baxter makes another effort. Depends how heeled the knee is. But, losing both made a big difference in the rotations and depth. It was clear the guards and small forwards were gassed at the end of the season and inconsistent because of this. I wish Pope could have gotten Trey Stewart and Erickson more time so they could have contributed more. Especially Stewart if he’s supposed to be so good.
The good points are that the freshman bigs got lots of playing time and improved a lot. With more bigs, they would be able to put more pressure down low on teams like SF and WSU. We need a dominant point guard to come in and a couple bigs. Baxter would help, but he’s really a 4. Fousse can play the 4 but we need someone besides Lohner. Lohner needs to play the three. We will be deep at the 3 and 4 positions.
When is Pope NOT incredibly optimistic. That is what helps make him such a great coach. Real fans need to be honest, BYU actually over acheived this season based on the personnel they had available for the entire season. What the younger guys did was nothing short of very impressive. Traore, in particular, was great. Atiki made huge strides. I hope some of the other guards that have been talked about, Erickson, Stewart, etc. will make strides as well. I don’t know if Johnson and Knell can answer the call but they should be improved, with experience this year, for next year. Obviously BYU needs a leader to step up like Barcello did. They need someone to run the offense like Barcello did. Lucas can keep doing that I hope.
Having said that, as a BYU fan I am satisfied with the season the team had. They had some really good wins, a stretch of frustrating losses and finished as good as I thought they could.
