The starters were
Barcellos, heart and soul, 25 and yet needs to take even more shots
Averette, not bad 1st start, love the man bun at BYU
Harding, Steady eddy, will always be there at crunch time
Baxter, still a garbage cleaner. Needs Childs DNA
Lee, never flashy but always solid.
Bench guys with big minutes
Harward. team high rebounds
Lohner, stat filler, too juiced up to make any shots, ridiculous upside
Knell, way too many shots for a one dimensional player
Johnson, complete game demands more time.
W Lowell, lot a rust but a game changer
George, efficient, shocked me with his 3s.
(Haarms will eat time from all these guys.)
Way too many players for a college rotation so who gets the minutes?
Haarms, can’t teach 7’3.
Lowell, range baby.
Lohner, give him 20 games to settle in and he will dominate
and Erickson (because we need a point)
making my head hurt here, Pope could make 2 great teams out of his roster and yet you can only start 5 and rotate 3 with big minutes.
Well I would have liked to see Haarms play last night. I didn’t see enough inside play to get a feel for what BYU will do this year, but really nothing to criticize last night. We will probably see a more athletic team in NO tonight, so that will be interesting. What was the unexpected-how well Lohner moves and his size for a freshman. He threw some bricks, but this kid is going to be good. Johnson looked good and I feel bad for Wade-he will get lost in the crowd-just not a physical enough presence. Everyone else looked as expected and Hasrms should allow Baxter to be better. BYU first real test comes December 1 against USC
Johnson surprised me. Plays some defense too. As time moves on, some players will stand out. But, he does have two teams that could play 20 minutes each. And, we always have injuries. So, there are good players 15 deep. What a problem to have as a coach… Kind of how you build a dynasty and reload every year.
I would like to see more inside game as well. But, 108 points, shooting percentage at 58% and threes better than last year. Haarms can shoot 3s as well.
NO is a run and gun team. BYU will set a new record on 3s, hahaha, more possessions. just kidding but my suspicion is that these games have little to do with who plays once we get serious and more about what goes on in practices… having said that, here is what the tea leaves say:
Haarms is a starter, whether he comes off the bench or not.
Lowell is also a starter, a 6’10 guy with range is not sitting on a pope team!
Lohner, too much upside to sit.
George blew me away with his 1st two 3s
Johnson is efficient and his brother that committed to Oregon before the mission, may be open to coming here (just me and my thoughts)
Erickson has to play, we need more playmakers
Well I would like to see more of Erickson in the next two games, his shot looks really smooth. Realistically you would like an 8 man rotation, but there are so many capable players that I would use 10 in games that I felt pretty confident in. Again BYU loses two really good point guards after this year and those are pretty big holes to fill. I could even see Lohner as a big point, like Collingsworth. But that’s just a Christmas wish. Barcello looks stouter to me this year as if he’s spending weight room time. I’ll probably have a better idea after tonight as the quickness of NO will give us a different look and Utah Valley should be fundamentally sound. With Haarms BYU should be pretty capable on the defensive end and help Baxter be more of a factor. Lowell needs time to get his legs under him, but a really nice looking stroke. George only gets better with every game and who better to develop him than Pope and company. I don’t ever remember a deeper team than this years bunch-usually your looking at a bunch of projects
Great observation on Haarms/Baxter.
So I am now thinking that we would redshirt George and Johnson. (problem solved)
Warr is a redshirt and a warrior.
We lose Haarms, Averette, Barcello next year.
That would give us a bench of
Erickson- spells Averette
Harward- for Lee
Haarms- for lee
Lohner-for Harding/Baxter
Lowell- for Harding/Baxter
Knell- Barcello/Harding
While I don’t think that Harward and Haarms or lee for that matter will be a ton of minutes together on the floor in the modern fast paced, 3 point happy world. Lowell/Lohner are in big demand as Pope LOVES players that can kill you inside or out. That is one reason why Lee will always find minutes, his 3!
My personal starters would be
ABBA
Harding
Lowell
Haarms.
with a healthy dose of
Lee
Harward
Lohner
Erickson/Knell
Sounds about right-Haarms is day to day so hopefully USC and we will see him back otherwise interior defense could hurt us-nothing like a 7’3” ball swatter
Just a guess but I don’t see them redshirting George-too much athleticism that could pay dividends this year, but that’s a really tough call for Pope. But again, it’s only been one game and Erickson was one of the last to come off the bench yesterday, so not sure what’s up with that. NO wasn’t very good last year, so not sure what they will be like
Sadly their redshirt eligibility was burned the second they checked onto the court.
Football allows redshirt players to play a limited number of games; all other sports require a waiver of special circumstance, most commonly medical reasons, for a player who has played even a moment in competition.
Not sure if Johnson was just hot last night or if that will be what we get from him every game. If so, he will share time playing against a smaller team we may need to use.