Niagara has a couple of potential NBA guys too. But, the difference was we shot much better and outscored them. Just like I said was needed the last game.
By the way, UTA lost to Alabama by one point. Friday should be winnable if we play the same game as we did tonight.
According to your expertise, Alabama will probably have a couple of NBA players on their team. That is always a good excuse card to play when the team gets blown out by an average team.
Just reporting the facts… Childs has anshot as well as Bryant. So, we simply need to make our shots like last night and we won’t fall too far behind if we do at all.
Anshot at what? If you are talking about playing in the NBA, and I am totally guessing that is what you are thinking, neither one of them will make it.
BYU does not develop players enough to give them that opportunity. BYU plays a high school type of game that is not conducive to improvement in players or teams. They are the same team every year and they finish in the same place every year… a good wcc team when compared to the other teams in the league.
Mika was a very good college player but he never developed his game enough to play at the next level…
Disagree about Mika. He improved greatly his sophomore year. He should have been drafted because he has huge upside. But, he should have stayed one more year.
Tell that to the NBA owners and scouts…
I say he was a very good college player who didn’t improve his game. He had a good year, but it was against inferior players and he never developed a post up game or an outside shot or anything akin to it. He had a jumper from 15 and could run the floor and that was about it.
Do you even remember his freshman year? He was light years better his sophomore year after a two year mission. He needed one more year to develop his outside shot to be better than he got it to.
One more year wouldn’t have done anything for him. He would not have developed an outside shot. He would have been the same player with no improvement in his overall game. Just because a player scores more points the following season doesn’t mean he is improving.
You need to understand all facets of the game. Your observation is too simplistic. If he had improved like he might have at another school that actually makes their players better skillwise, both defensively and offensively, he might have had a chance.
He was not a good defender, jumping for pump fakes and not getting in front of players.
How do you know that he wouldn’t improve? He was a total surprise coming off his mission. And, he wasn’t the reason we were losing. He was the reason we won games and were in many others too.
Utah is beatable…
Proven right about what? You did see that first half, right. It was the same mess we saw in the prior game - no improvement in general play.
The second half was different but and yes, we did hit shots and thank heaven for that as we played virtually no defense at all. The reason we had such a great half is that Niagara decided not to play any defense at all and just go for playground run and gun basketball. I don’t know what their coach was thinking but that was one horrible performance. If you think “our great play” caused that, you are sadly mistaken. Giving up 50 some points in a half is anything but great, even if you score 60 something yourself. It was about as bad a defensive performance as you can see from two teams - but theirs was still much worse than ours, including all the stupid fouls that led to about half the points for us in the half.
So don’t get to excited. We won’t play any teams in league play that decide to lay down on defense and I can just about assure you that Alabama won’t. Let’s see how they do against that.
Why this is so hard to understand is beyond belief. Every player after the game shared what happened. We made the extra passes and got either wide open shots or the ball in position to either make the basket or get fouled. The players said that against UTA they just shot too many 3’s because UTA was going to see if they could make them or not. We got baited in to taking too many 3’s.
Against Alabama, we will either have to make the 3’s or not get baited into them as much.
It’s all about matchups too. And, about the health of Bryant’s foot.
As far as our defense allowing 54 points, that happens when a coach at half-time says we need to work on our offense. And, as many times, when a team scores 64, the other team seems to score more. Especially when the clock stops all the time for fouls. More chances for both teams to score more.
I’ll say it again, I don’t care how many points the other team scores if we are scoring 64 in a half. Chances will be that we win the game. And that’s all that matters. No one cares that UTA only lost by 1 point or 30 points. They are 3-1.
Not a sign of a good team…
Is it on the TV? What I see is we are 1-7 from 3s. Hit 2 or 3 more like we should be able to we would be close. But, Alabama is shooting well. UMASS will be a good game.
St. Mary’s got beat by Washington State who isn’t better than BYU.
It’s on facebook, follow the link. Brady posted it in another thread.
BYU is cruising to another loss.
However, we held Alabama to 71 points. I can only guess that Bryant’s foot was bothering him as he shot very poorly. But, the other area I thought we had ironed out was the free throws. 11-21 is bad. Yoli has been shooting FT well but not today. He still had a good game. The ending of the game may have been different had we been 18-21 FT. And Bryant a better game.
The other thing is what we have been saying for a long time. Why do we always start games with no energy and fall behind? UTA was the same way as today. But, I can’t agree we aren’t a good team.
Until BYU wins a game or two that they are not favored to win, there is no way you can say they are a good team. You can’t just beat below average teams and claim that you are good.
I was concerned about the officiating in the first half but BYU was getting lots of calls in the second half so no excuses there.
There were multiple opportunities to make the game closer and BYU couldn’t do any of it. They shot poor free throws, they played poor defense when they needed tough defense, they missed open 3’s. All of those things are hallmarks of average teams that never rise to the occasion and never put forth the effort to compete when they need to.
Until they can do that, they are not a good team.
I would say because of the reasons you sited that BYU lost this game more than Bama won. The game was there for BYU to take but they for whatever reason never stood up to try to take it. If they had Bama might have beaten them anyway…but no one will ever know…
If they has simply made their normal percentage of 3s, made their normal percentage of FTs, and played defense consistently…totally different game.
Oh…okay…Come on, free throws and a couple of more 3’s and we are talking about how great they are. We can be a good team and still lose to a #25 team. 
Because they are just an average team. That is the reason they did not stand up and take it. A good team would have done one or more of those things and made it closer or won.
This is something most of us understand. Grasshopper doesn’t see it.
Until they do that, they are just an average team.
It’s not that complicated.