I told you I just watched the game. I paid particularly close at the falling down and for fouls. We fouled them several times that weren’t called as well. We lost because of turnovers. Bad ones too.
whatever… that stretch of game where the Gaels went from a 4 pt. lead and a well played competitive game to a 16 pt. lead the referees didn’t miss any fouls on BYU. All the 3 pt. plays, change of possession and turnovers because of desperation to stay with St. Mary’s as the officials let them take control of the game were costly. Although BYU fought through it and played hard to get to within 3, they were too gassed at the end and the Gaels held on for the win.
Take away that stretch of bad officiating and who knows what might have happened. It just isn’t in the cards for BYU this season. Like Chris said, they don’t have the firepower to get past the bias so that is where they are this season… a middle of the pack wcc team.
No one is agreeing with your opinion. The officiating wasn’t the reason for that run either. But, nice try. Are you going to continue this in the Big 12? Grass is greener on the other side 
Totally agree with you and Chris!!!
Just ignore blah blah blah SG blah blah blah blah blah!
Nice dew on the brain reaction. Are you unable to actually respond about the topics and show personal restraint for causing contention? Are you Canadian because you don’t seem to be a fan of free speech and opposing opinions.
Hahaha… always bringing some political slant into a discussion when someone doesn’t agree with you.
I like that SG blah blah blah take. It seems pretty accurate.
Too often the game is called one way for BYU and a different way for their opponents. In the St. Mary’s game every time a BYU player went around a screen, one of the Gaels was there to get a hand on them or step in front of them causing the BYU player to bang into them. Often it was fairly significant contact, unfortunately it was rarely if ever called. But when BYU tried the same defensive maneuver, it was called against them more frequently. If it wasn’t called the Gaeils players and their coach complained vehemently. Honestly it was ridiculous how much time the St. Mary’s players spent yapping at and with the officials about every call.
If I were the official I would have told them to shut up and play or they were going to get T’d up.
You mean when we never fought over the screens and went under allowing the 3 point shots and no chance for a foul. Sorry, but it just didn’t happen as you imagined. But, good imagination though 
I am going to chime in here, I think “Fans” see what they want to see… They don’t focus on the calls that the other team gets, or what BYU players sometimes get away with themselves.
That being said, I also know from personal experience that officials can cost teams “wins” by the way they kill momentum, by simply calling fouls at key times during the game. John Stockton mentioned this once in an interview.
The question I have is what is going on inside the locker room? from my experience in watching both college and pro teams, when a team takes a dive like BYU has done the second half of the season, it has nothing to do with the players abilities. It has to do with unrest inside the locker rooms.
We as fans usually don’t here about it until the following season when players leave or are asked to leave.
Not sure if Chris or Tom might have some insight into what is really going on inside the locker room, but I have to wonder if something is fracturing the team togetherness?
So, I agree completely with your first paragraph. Jim is a perfect example bless his heart.
The next question you have brings up a question for sure. Does a ref not call fouls so the momentum of one team ends? Or do they call the fouls as they see them? Is it their responsibility to direct momentum or is it to just call the game as they see it and let the momentum take care of itself?
As for the locker room, I’m going to throw this bomb out. After losing Harding and Lee (and others) kids that gave two years to their missions, come back to play, only to find others taking their spots by non-mission members and a lot of non-members. Personally, I don’t have a problem with non-members playing, as I played Church ball as a non-member, and took a scholastic spot as a non-member before being baptized. But, for those returning, is there some issue. I’m just asking because we have a lot of non-members playing this year and some no-mission kids.
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The team is too small. Even crappy teams are killing us inside. If we sag, they bomb away.
If Lohner would of exploded into his Soph. year like we all thought, we would be firmly in the Dance. Just how many games did we lose by a basket? I can think of 4 right off the top of my head.
Boils down to two things…soft inside, and not enough fire power to help Barcello.
But that doesn’t answer the turnover problem. Nor does it explain the meltdown with 1:48 against SM. There’s more going on.
I keep thinking if Haarms had come back for one more year BYU would have no more than 3 losses. Unfortunately he didn’t and he indicated he wouldn’t so that is that. His 2 replacements both went down for the year and what could have been a great year turned into a mediocre year.
So next year they need a good big man and a good point guard. They need to add a couple of impact players. Lohner and Fous have the tools to be impact players but all the rest are role players.
Haha, way to be clear on your comment. This makes no sense. No wonder nobody understands what you are talking about most of the time and when we do we realize it doesn’t make much sense anyway. Oh well, not much has changed in the past 10 years here.
Thanks for a post that is easy to understand and makes sense. You are correct.
We need these kinds of posts to balance the hoppers comments.
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My question is very simple Chris:
What changed?
Baxter went down early December time frame, We played to a 7-4 record before losing four straight.
In that timeframe, we beat USU, San Francisco, St. Mary’s, and the lesser teams in the WCC.
So what happened that caused the four game slump, and worse of all, our play overall has been degraded.
To me, it seems to there may be some internal strife going on.
Well this doesn’t help either… Another Injury to a starter:
BYU basketball: Cougars’ Seneca Knight dealing with thumb injury - Deseret News
You know exactly what I’m asking as why I asked it in the way I did. The answer is simple too. The question was rhetorical. There is no answer because either way, every call kills momentum for one team.
So, in your world, refs are either incompetent or corrupt. There seems to be no other answer. Back to my other question, will this continue when we enter Big 12 land? Or, is it just the grass looks greener over there, for now? 
The big change was how they defended BYU and Barcello. They doubled and tripled Barcello and gave open looks to others that couldn’t knock down the 3 ball. When the rest of the team could consistently hit the outside shot BYU won. The first 40% of the year, Barcello was getting open looks, because Knell and Johnson were consistently knocking down threes. This was critical for BYU, with a small front line. Pressure defense caused turnovers that lost at least 3 games due to turnovers. Barcello is probably BYU’s best all around player since Jimmer and I expect him to get a shot in the NBA. Not having a player like Baxter or Harward was tough when others couldn’t stop opponents from getting to the rim, especially late in the games.
Last 7 games, 5 lost due to turnovers. The slipping falling routine is a real problem and it’s been all season. Barcello included. Then, the horrible weak terrible passing because of defensive pressure and panic. The inability to go from practice to game is glaring.
The bright areas have been George and Lohner making their 3’s. They just have to play under control down the stretch and not dribble to nowhere.
See how we come out this week and play.
Do Baxter and/or Harward have much experience at the D1 level as real impact players??? I read something several weeks ago that indicated that both of their experiences at the D1 level is very limited. IF that is true, is the fact that they were lost to injury early on, more of an excuse to the problems of the BB team or reliable believed impact based on the premise of the factual long time history of D1 high-level experience for one or both players? A true question, which I have no answer for.
Baxter is very athletic and a good shot blocker-Harward at 6’11” a good space taker and a tough rebounder. Unfortunately we will never know what Baxter could have done as this was his 3rd consecutive season ending injury and he is done. Harward I’m not sure of. The down side for BYU was it left a hole with nobody to compensate for the loss