Scouting Bellarmine U

Basketball
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So, wondering where Bellarmine U is located?

1 Bellarmine is located in Louisville, Ky. so you know that they will have good BBall talent.
They took both Louisville and W. Virginia to the brink, they are not a team to overlook.

2 They are lead by 3 Sr guards
Weiland
Tipton
Pfriem

3 on Offense, BYU should be able to get their shots, Bellarmine ranks #212 on defense and they have not seen a team like BYU, that shoots 50% of their shots from 3land

4 On Defense, BYU should be able to cover this team with ease. I wouldn’t be fouling them much, Bellarmine leads the country in FT%. But then, BYU doesn’t foul a lot. Our best defenders by a mile are our guards…no sweat

5 to be clear, Bellarmine has come out West for a paycheck, They play Utah Wed. then come down for more slaughter with BYU on Friday nite.

6 I would take this game to insert Adams Jr. if he can go, going to need him in Big 12 play.

7 With Robinson’s gimpy ankle, I’d also get Baker all the minutes to knock more rust off and sync with the starters.

8 BYU will slaugher Bellarmine on the boards, BYU is ranked #3 nationally on DR (rebounding) and #23 nationally on O.R., Bellarmine is ranked #209.

9 Finally found a team that gets to the FT less than BYU. We get fouled at a rate of 23% of the time, Bellarmine…20%. The national average is north of 35%. (kind of kills comment 4, look above)

10 Bellarmine does not have a single signature stat that I can see. They are below average at Assists, Reb., don’t shoot a lot of 3s, only one player shoots over 40% from 3land and he is a low volume shooter.

BYU is favored by 21 in this game. 80-59, I will go with the over on this one.
BYU 84-61 BU just because Pope will fool around with lineups, perfect game to acclimate Baker and Adams.

2

I wouldn’t fool around too much if they played Louisville and West Virginia well. Hit them hard to start. Get up by 40 and then fool around :slight_smile:

3

Worked with a guy in Indy for a number of years who played for Bellermine. He is in Bellermine HOF. Clinton Davis. They were quite good for a small college. Sounds like they are still pretty good for their size. Ciint was a great player and even a better person.

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I’d put BYU’s over/under at 90. Hoping to see a lot of Baker. Kid’s a scorer off the dribble, and we have been missing that. Marcus will likely play but not a lot.

I scan Cougarboard–mostly just to take the temp of BYU fans–but I’ve never posted on it. Too many people posting stuff on there that makes me just shake my head or laugh or both. I see people posting stuff like “Marcus won’t fit it” or “Marcus will hurt the team chemistry” or “he looks overweight” or whatever. Marcus will be a STAR. Mark my words. Imagine Yoeli Childs with the ability to hit 5-10 3s and play PG if needed. S-T-A-R. He’ll fit in just fine.

PS So will Baker.

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Pmac, love the personal connection. Thanks for sharing that.

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The reason why I posted all the clips of Marcus Adams Jr. is to point out that he not only managed 28ppg but 5 ASSISTS and 6 boards. FREAK athlete. and as you say. Hangs with Johnson and Robinson. That my friends is Friendship and Trust. He is tailor made for a Pope team.

I played college baseball (lefty that could hit anything) but my love is basketball and to this day, I run the point on league teams and have coached basketball teams for over 40 years. There is a LOT of trust on this BYU team.

I just checked Baker’s stats from 3land, he shot 37% from 3 last year. Adams will come in shooting close to 40% from 3land.

Really the only concern I have about this BYU team is that we struggled to get good shots on the road against Utah, Take away Robinson’s 3 makes, only Saunders hit 2, Waterman and Knell were 0 for 6 and 0 for 4 from 3land. Waterman played 21 minutes and his only stat was 3 rebounds. still don’t trust him in big games.

The 4 guys that really shined on the road at Utah…
.Robinson 17 pts.
Khalifa 6 assists, 5 boards
Saunders 6 board (3 OBs), 2 steals, 13 points and 2-4 from 3land in 21 min.
Johnson 11 points, 2 steals, and ready for this Hopper…11 boards, 5 OBs.

Hall had 11 points, 2 boards, 2 assists, 1 steal and 2/3 FT
Knell 11 points and 4/6 FT
other then that, BYU stunk up the FT at 58%

I don’t give a flip about beating up on lesser teams, it boils down to how we play on the road in big games and every single Big 12 road game is big, determines our future in the big dance.

so you tell me the value of BYU players, on the road, in big games

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The also played Evansville and lost by 9 last week…while BYU beat Evansville by 40 something…the week before that…

If the schedule were stronger with the same record…BYU would not be as low as 4 in the NCAA NET rating system right now…

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That is true. BYU has played a very soft pre season with all these cupcakes. We are ranked somewhere in the 200’s on SOS. We will find out real fast once BYU hits the road on the Big12

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Some of the teams we played were better when we scheduled them. And, we’ve been able to get the team game going really well.

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This site has BYU with #36 SOS so far:

This site says #60:

I’m not sure which if either is accurate, but it makes it feel like our schedule has been about average. Remember that all the good teams are playing lots of practice games. SDSU has only lost once since we beat them, and it was to GCU, who is getting ranking votes. ASU and Fresno have both been decent, and of course Utah has been very good. So I think our schedule would match up with most of the teams ranked 20-50.

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And, as we have mentioned, this has given BYU a chance to develop as a really good team that plays together well.

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probably just an oversight, I have done it all too frequently on the Warren Nolan site myself, but the SOS link to is last year’s. This year he has the RPI SOS at 129 Strength of Schedule (SOS) - Men’s College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com

His RPI data was rock solid back when the NCAA was using it and seems to align with the other sites that were also attempting to give more immediate RPI information than the weekly NCAA RPI update.
This time of year, more than ten games, up to about midway through the conference season when data started to be too aged to be useful, RPI was a good approximation of where teams were…the NCAA moved from RPI to NET because by the end of the year other metrics proved more useful…hence the NET usage for the NCAA committee at the end of the year.

Teamrankings has always seemd pretty good…my impression is that foreward looking it is not quite as good as Kenpom or Bartorvik…I suspect the NCAA doesn’t use it because it is too closely tied to whatever vegas entities pay for it.

I am not sure I like the preseason schedule this year. Looking at the rest of the Big12, Pope seems to have followed the general opinion of most of the coaches basically a schedule of cupcakes with enough otherwise to let the team and coaches know where they really are.

For my taste, Utah State, UVU, Utah Tech, Southern Utah, and Weber State, with a smattering of old MWC members (SDSU, UNLV, CSU, WYO) would be better and still have enough softness but not so many blowout practice games.
I think it would come out somewhere easier than the B12 leading Kansas SOS (43) and the Kstate SOS (92)while not matching the powderpuff schedules of the rest of the conference. mostly in the 200s. which maybe the reason why the conference is so over-rated right now…still the best…just not overpoweringly the best…maybe my B10 bias is showing.

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Although, maybe playing weaker preseason games helps with not being as beat up for the season and post season.

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  1. Thanks for the catch on Warren Nolan–I will fire my team of research assistants immediately!
  2. I agree on the schedule. I think it helps in preseason to have to win some close games. The SDSU, NC State, and Utah games told me way more about this game than 20 games we win by 25 points.
    PS: here’s what those 3 games told me
    SDSU-Hall, Stewart, Richie, Jaxson, Noah, and SJ are hyper athletic and we can compete against anyone on the perimeter. We have never had this much defensive length and athleticism on the perimeter. I also learned we can beat a team with a dominant big IF Fouss plays.
    NC State-our guys can step up and win a game that is hyper physical and full of trash talk.
    Utah-If we don’t make 3s, we will lose to good teams.

Those three things tell me a lot more than watching Knell make 3s against some of the worst teams in the country.

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SDSU and WYO are already on the schedule this year…no shift.
so adding UNLV and CSU shifts the Cougar SOS only because this year CSU is suprisingly good…several journalists have CSU and BYU as surprise teams this year.
USU, UVU, UTech, and WSU would not be raising the bar so much as eliminating the lowest of the low from this year. Still pretty cupcake, but at least more interesting than how big can the blowout be.

I don’t expect to see the change next year, maybe two or three years down the line, when Pope has figured out that his mindset, and hence coaching, is better fitted to the B12 than the WCC…

It has made me cringe the last few years, and this year when he has spoken about the difference between the WCC and B12…in the WCC he was coaching to avoid losses, for the B12 he is coaching to create wins…an entirely different mindset…more fun…and more likely to create the wins…

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I’d really like to play the WCC this year and cream St. Mary’s beat Gonzaga at the their place :slight_smile:

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You bet!
A bunch of us work buddies got together after work a couple of times and played basketball at the Crispus Attucks High School gym that Oscar Robinson made famous. Clint mercifully dialed back his play for the most part but the skill level and talent from high school/good church ballers to the college level was extremely obvious!

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They are fans that live in the bubble. The same fans that believed the Lone Peak 3 would take BYU to the final four and they still believe it if this or that hadn’t happened. That is what makes me shake my head and laugh. They live in this delusional world of grandeur that only exists in their wild imaginations. The furthest they’ve ventured outside of Utah Valley or some other bubble spot is a family trip to Disneyland when they were 7 and all that did was feed their fantasyland beliefs.

Too funny.

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Are you reclaiming your child fantasies again? The time when he was 7 and he hit his head on Dumbo. It stuck with him :rofl:
I think Marcus will fit in just fine. With the physicality of the Big 12 they will need to be 12 deep.

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Correct me but did Mika jump ship on the Lone Peak 3 by his second year? Don’t rip Utah when all you Calys are clogging up our roads and ruining our beautiful state. I do come down to San Diego for a week every year, love those beaches/food. Have not been to Disney Wokeland for years now, I see the new CEO has fired a lot of the Diversity club hires and trying to attract back middle Americans. Headed up to the Red Wood forests this spring.

Back to Bellarmine…Utah smoked them by 40. Wouldn’t shocked if BYU did about the same. Let’s be clear, BU came to Utah for a paycheck.

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