1 It is true that you play down to your competition’s level. BYU did not score a basket for over 5 minutes while Portland scored 12 straight to take the lead in the first half. Portland was playing without its best shooter, Robertson, and rebounder, Wood. and yet they still lead most of the 1st half.
2 George had his best game of the year, 20 pts. 9 rebs. 3 assists for a team high.
3 Turnovers, 19, I can understand early in the year with a new team, but this is unacceptable. Portland scored 20 of its total 58 points on TOs. Foos accounted for 7 TOs.
4 Spence continues to shine with his steady play, at the expense of Saunders minutes and Stewart.
5 We continue to out rebound teams by 10 or so rebs., really offsets our sucky TOs.
6 BYU has been guarding the 3 very well over the past 2 weeks. It shows. Portland is the best 3 scoring team in the WCC, BYU held them to 6-21 while hitting 9-26.
7 Now we head into the teeth of WCC with tough road games @ LMU and @ SDU. Prediction, TOs over 14 per game spells a loss!
Excellent breakdown. The type of turnovers are troublesome. We still have players who dribble too much which are a big reason for many of the turnovers. Get the motion going and all the time will help.
By the way, would you play Johnson less and give Sanders and Stewart more time?
BYU is a different team from the first half to the last half. First half the struggled as a team. The offense looks stagnant. I don’t know if they win this game without Spencer and his stabilizing force in the first half. He was the only person doing something.
Second half was amazing and if they could put together two halves like this it would be a lot of fun to watch.
Both halves their defense was really good. They shut down their star player who scored 29 in the previous game.
I hope Hall can start making free throw soon. I expect a little better out of a point guard. In general his shooting percentage is lower than I would like to see. I hope it’s just first year back from mission rust.
Atiki had a fun stretch where he made eight points including a nice outside jumper and an alley oop. If he can start consistently hitting a 12 to 15 footer that really opens up his game.
I enjoy listening to the Greg Wrubell and Mark Pope interviews on KSL radio for extra insight.
Pope said a few things that I thought were very insightful. He commented that Portland came out with a defensive scheme that the younger BYU players have not seen. That was the reason for the miscues in the first half. So props to Portland for good defensive effort. Pope said the team was able to adjust in the second half and he was very proud of their adjustments. Some teams he has coached in the past would not have been able to make those adjustments mid-game and would have needed to work them out in practice.
Pope also said in the first half that fous played “sped up”. I’m not sure what that means but when I watched it looks like he was making a lot of poor decisions in the passing department in the first half. He played much better in the second half. I hope he learned from it and we don’t see a repeat. If he had his typical one to two turnovers a game then our turnovers look much better this last game.
Concerning the improved defense, Pope said a few weeks ago that they changed their defensive scheme. They were being caught too often in rotation and giving the other team easier three-point shots. They changed their scheme and they have been doing much better in the three-point department.
A couple of other fun notes. BYU is currently on a 7-0 run. This is the second longest streak of the Pope tenure. 9-0 is the longest. The last three games they have kept their opponent under 60 points.
Good insights, Paul. In the turnover department, Foos has never had a TO game like the Portland game. 7, wow. So I don’t think that will be a factor moving forward. As for our other OT machines, it is a problem and I would not blame on defensive wrinkles that they face. I see lazy passes, I see a lot of em.
Last season, I may of bagged on George often because he knew how to finish but was clueless when it came to passing. If he passed, it was a TO! Robinson seems to suffer from the same problem. Rudi, don’t get me started, as a point, he is a TO machine. Hall gets a pass for now for 2 reasons, Mission rust and as Mr. Basketball in HS, he may of played point, but he averaged something like 25 per game. Kind of like Trae Young is a Point for Atlanta. So Hall has some growing up to do and I really like the fact that Pope brings Rudi off the bench when most of the 2nds are playing. That allows Rudi to hunt his shot rather then look for an open guy. His PPG really shot up and TOs went down.
I’ve always liked Spencer Johnson’s game, not flashy but he always get the assignment of guarding their best player. Not many posters were high on him last season but I have always liked his cool headed play. Atiki…he has his moments, shoots good some games then tears your heart out with 4 quick fouls.