Nicked again by the “Cougarfan Lock”. why they have this feature, IDK.
Pepperdine took Pacific to the woodshed. Edwards had 37 and 11 boards. WOW!
11 assists for Ross. They were leading by 25 in that game. They certainly started the year hot, playing even with ranked UCLA and beating a good Cal team. I’m calling our road game with Pepperdine a TRAP game.
BYU is tailor made for a Pepperdine team. We have several guys that can guard Edwards out at the 3, where he does plenty of damage, shooting 43%. And he ain’t gettin 11 rebounds on BYU’s big men. Not a chance.
Colbey Ross will have Rottweiler Barcello locked on him.all night, And if we need to, our secret PG weapon, George.
Their 3rd best player, Polk Jr. is 5’9. Perfect for Averette.
You can bet Pope is going to CHEW on players for letting Portland have all those open 3s at our house
We will feed the big men all night. Typical WCC game,
BYU by 10, 79-69
On the road, we will have our hands full if we play like the start of the Portland game and let them have open 3s. Portland hit their first 5 3s.
I too like us at home. Edwards is a great player. If Pope doesn’t change the lineup, we open with Edwards guarded by Knell. Yikes…I predict that plan changes in a hurry. Knell fights but is not fast, doesn’t jump, and is not long. Johnson is rangier and a very annoying good defender, but I’m saying God made Gideon George to guard a guy like Edwards. Gideon will smother him on the perimeter and force him inside where he will have to deal with Haarms affecting his shots.
I can’t wait to watch AB on Ross. Great challenge for Alex. Shut down Ross and Edwards won’t be able to beat BYU by himself.
AGREED: pound it inside over and over and over and don’t get drunk on threes and BYU wins it going away.
Good point. No way Knell guards Edwards very long. I was thinking Lohner and George but then Lohner isn’t close to George as a defender. I would start playing George more with the starters with the Gonzaga game in mind. He was the one person that was effective, going to the hoop
Well , we were both wrong, Knell not only guards Edwards but does a fair to middling job but that did not last long. Goerge got his minutes as we all thought and was very effective on defense and rebounding. The stats won’t show how he bull dogged his way into rebounds and chaos for the Waves.
Lohner played a strong game but it is clear that George ate some of his time as well. Lee ended up guarding Edwards over the last 4 minutes (I know, right???) and shuts him down. Barcellos made up for his off night by hustle, 6 assists and sealing the deal in the end. Harward got his usual 9 boards
But the real heroes to last night’s game were Haarms for his shot blocking and timely made shot to end that 5 minute drought…
harding and his 10 rebounds
Averette had his best game as a cougar. He was tenacious at getting to the hoop.
Did I leave anyone out?
After watching this game, it is clear to me that 1) BYU’s deep bench gassed Pepperdine in the end as did SMC and SF. 2) when I said our game Sat @pepperdine would be a trap game, I am convinced even more that we could loose at they place. Colbey and Edwards will be a handful.
I decided to count how many shots George and Haarms did not block but altered to clearly cause a miss:
George-2
Haarms-5
We had a key play in the second half where Harward got a rebound and putback-it happened when George went waaaaay up, over a Pepp rebounder with inside position, and tapped the ball off the backboard right into Harward’s hands. I love seeing our guys make plays like that.
We were way wrong-George was actually on Ross (doing a great job on him for much of the first half and start of second half), and I cannot say enough good about the job guarding Edwards by Knell, Lohner and Lee.
Haarms was key with that shot and BA was really good with clutch shots. Pepperdine played tough trapping defense. It was just a hard game for me to watch and I hope they play better Wednesday or it won’t be a pretty sight. Best defense in the conference that I’ve seen so far outside of Gonzaga
I’m not that worried as long as we don’t go through 7 minute droughts. I thought we were over that stuff. That should have been a 20 point win going away. Haarms can’t go 9-9 in one game and turn around and go 2-6 missing 2 foot shots. He won’t do that Wednesday.
ya know, I wasn’t too worried about Bacello, when shots weren’t hitting, he was making plays on both sides. Pepperdine was held to 22% first half shooting and 28% for the entire game. That is knockin knee defense.
“When you hold a team to 54 (points), those don’t come very often, especially in today’s game with the 3-point line,” said assistant coach Chris Burgess. “To do that to a team like Pepperdine, my coach (Utah’s Rick Majerus) loved to hold teams to under 55 points. He’s smiling down right now.”
I look at it this way, Pepperdine will hit shots at home that they missed at the Marriott, that is why I am calling this a possible loss. You have to believe that Barcello won’t have 2 poor shooing game in a row. The other point is that BYU can field 2 complete teams and not lose that much. We mudder around for most of the game but that last 5 minutes, BYU is still fresh and has gas to finish strong and if we win, that is the last of our tough games til Gonzaga. The upper tier of the WCC has only one other team that can boast kind of finish. The zags, the guys that are finally going to get Few his first NC.
Barcello is probably the toughest guy on that team, but I’m with you, Pepperdine will be tough at home and won’t shoot 20% in either half at home. Lee did well scoring 10 but frustrates me with his plodding and when he gets doubled it’s often a TO but he made some key plays. I felt Lohner was exploited a bit in this game and had foul problems, but he will play better Wednesday. Pope likes the challenge, so expect a good effort Wednesday
I agree with you. No gimmie thinking. That’s when we lose to weaker teams.
I think Pepperdine May shoot better at home. But, I think AB and Haarms will shoot much better as well. We simply cannot have 7 minute droughts.
Define Tough games vs. gimmees, Harold? I hear what you are saying but BYU is very very tough to game plan for because of their height. So a Santa Clara or Pacific in their 1st game facing us are NOT going to be prepared Haarms, Harward height or the sheer athleticism of Lohner and George, there just aren’t that many guys like that playing in the WCC. I see Pepperdine as a very tough game just because of Colbey and Edwards, who will both be playing professional ball post Pepperdine.
BYU’s signature is more and more defense. We don’t have an elite scorer on the team but we have many pieces that can put up double digits in any given night.
Barcello
Averette
Harding
Knell
Harward
Haarms
George
can all get there on any given night. BYU is a very tough team to cover just because we don’t have an elite scorer. Barcello would be closest to that level and look what happened to Pepperdine. A month ago, BYU WAS very beatable when Barcello did not score but today, we would play a BSU or USC and most likely beat BSU by 10 and play even with USC.
But playing BYU a 2nd time, you can prep for their height…Let’s hope Barcello has a great game today and not a nail biter.
Typical game at Pepperdine. I don’t like our offense. We rarely get open shots like Pepperdine does. We don’t have anyone who can create their own outside shots. Barcello won’t pull the trigger.
Barcello played well, Haarms did not. You can’t miss all those easy shots at 7’3”. Lohner played well BA, not particularly well. Johnson played well, Knell was a non-factor. Refs babied Ross too much, but not a horrible job. You can’t turn the ball over inside a minute and expect to win or get outboards when you are the bigger team in the last few minutes. Could have won but did-time to move on
Barcello played mostly well, but shots he used to make aren’t falling. Not good. In fact, 4 of the starting 5 shot a combined 9 for 34. 26% won’t win many games. Those same 4 were 1 for 15 from 3. Ugh. Johnson played well, but not in the crunch. Killer turnover at the end. Harward and Lohner played some awesome minutes.
Hopefully, this won’t hurt us too much. I think Pepperdine is much better than their record indicates. They have some really good players.
Yeh two of Barcello’s misses were prayers but he played under control pretty much. It changes game to game, but Johnson is pretty good on both ends of the court and AB and BA are pretty small. Haarms was down on the floor a lot and missed shots the last two games he would normally make. Bottom line though is PU held its own on the boards and had 4 more offensive rebounds and fewer turnovers and that was the game