The reason why BYU lost:
GU wins by 10 but it was a much closer game
Gonzaga is so skilled and well coached it would take a perfect game on the part of BYU to beat them. The way they have dominated their opponents this year they remind me of the UCLA teams from about 1964-1975 when they won 10 national championships in twelve years including 7 in a row from 67-73. Gonzaga doesn’t have as many great players as those UCLA teams but nobody else does either. After Wooden won in 64 & 65 he could sign just about any player he wanted to sign. There is much more parity in college basketball now but for at least this year Gonzaga reminds me of the UCLA teams. I hope they win it all.
The only weakness I see is that they have just average depth. They only played 2 subs last night and between them they played 20 minutes. Gonzaga didn’t seem to slow down toward the end of the game so maybe they have enough depth to handle anybody.
There’s no doubt Gonzaga has a great team. The 1st half was possibly something we could see for the future. I knew we weren’t going to continue shooting 75%. But, our shooting really fell off to about 25% in the 2nd half. If we just shoot 45%, I say we win that game even with the foul discrepancy. This is where GU was given the gift of playing the early game in the semi’s. Fatigue became apparent after halftime. Shots were short and way off.
Hats off to Pope and the team for their effort. Gonzaga won but BYU lost that game with poor 2nd half shooting. Also, 27-7 free throw discrepancy was the reason. The FBI should look into this.
I think BYU can win a game or two in the NCAA. They have a good team but Gonzaga is at another level. They should be a final 4 team for sure.
I’m not sure if we play them again we can shoot like we did in the 1st half. But, 28% in the 2nd half lost the game for us even though the fouls were heavily lopsided for GU. We missed like 5 layups and Harward had a dunk but froze and we did not score.
Watching the first half I was amazed at how well BYU played. It was probably their best half of basketball this season. They were doing everything right. In spite of that fact and what was really puzzling to me is the way the game was called in that first half. In spite of being behind by double digits, Gonzaga could do no wrong in the eyes of the officials. That single fact was an ominous one in my perspective. I thought to myself, wait… how can BYU be ahead and competing so well when the officials are whistling them for the dumbest calls and letting Gonzaga do what they want defensively? The calls were 6 on BYU and 1 on Gonzaga deep into the first half. My memory of it isn’t 100% accurate but I know that the foul disparity in the first half was surprising as BYU seemed to play through it.
However, the second half was a totally different story. Gonzaga made their runs but BYU was able to answer both major runs and keep it close… in spite of the HUGE disparity in calls against them once again. Once again, Gonzaga played mistake free basketball on defense… according to the officials and had only two fouls called on them well into the half. I don’t know why this happens every time but many of you remember how I have claimed, in the past, that Gonzaga is the darlings of the WCC as they consistently get favorable treatment whenever they play BYU. If you look at the statistics for this game, nearly EVERYTHING is exactly the same EXCEPT for the number of fouls called and free throws taken. BYU - 21 fouls and Gonzaga - 11. Many of those 11 on Gonzaga were inconsequential calls that had no real effect on the outcome, while the 21 calls on BYU resulted in 27 free throw attempts, compared to BYU’s 7 attempts for the game.
Sorry, that just doesn’t jive all things considered. Thank you WCC and biased officials for helping to ruin a potential upset with your biased officiating that favors Gonzaga every time.
100% agree. However, 28% shooting in the 2nd half was the other reason for the loss. That one we control ourselves.