Home sweet home. Cougs finally get to play in the Marriott. Pomerroy said years ago that the standard 4 point boost of home court was not enough. He said it was more like 6 but I would counter that for a team like BYU, that shoots a high% of 3s, HCA is more like 8 or 9 points.
BSU was dismal in its outside shooting vs Houston 1-16. They are good at guarding the 3 so far but have not faced a team like BYU. Advantage BYU and the primary reason why I call this a BYU win.
BSU is guard driven by 6’2 Dennis and 6’2 Shiver Jr. They lead the team in scoring at about 14ppg each. Our ABBA Sr’s should be able to slow them down. Toss up.
not too dominate inside, BYU should hold their own or dominate if Haarms is feelin better.
This is a game where Lohner/George should begin to shine. You don’t know how big a deal it was for Lohner to get those 3s to drop in the USU game.
If you look at BA’s career, he has NEVER EVER turned the ball over like he is doing this year. Even as a freshman good minutes in the Big12 his a/to was ok; then it was a very solid 2/1 his sophomore year. He regressed a bit as a junior at UVU but was still ok. This year is TERRIBLE–a negative a/to ratio for a senior PG is totally unacceptable; in fact, IMHO right now he’s a liability with the ball in his hands late in games. But it’s still early and he can improve. He just plays like a guy who doesn’t value EVERY possession as much as he should, but this team doesn’t have much margin of error against good teams. I want BA to shine and think Coach Pope wants it worse than any of us do. I think our optimum offense is with BA driving and dishing to AB for 3, and NOT the other way around, and hope Coach Pope gets it worked out with BA.
Pretty much.
I am rooting for BA to figure things out. What I would like to see is Lohner or George get good at high pics then finishing hard at the rim or kicking out to a wide open Barcello or Harding. Haarms could do it when his ankle heals, Harward, forget about it, he just needs to stay under the basket and clean up boards.
BA, with his quickness should be blowing by guys BUT never pick up the dribble til he knows what his next play is. Lohner is still apprehensive at the rim, and it costs him big time. Explode brotha, don’t worry about charges or blocks, who’s the big dog here?
I think we are all missing Haws and I never thought I would say that until his senior season. With his tall skinny frame he saw the court very well-probably much better than BA and was a great passer and good driving to the basket or launching the 3. Imo it took Pope to bring out the best in Haws
We rarely miss them til their gone.
I watched TJ grow up, went to several of his Lone Peak game in HS. Everyone is aware of the Haws legendary 6 am shooting sessions. he was undervalued throughout most of his BYU years. What I saw was a steel wall mental toughness, that he held in and used to impose his will. Even when Emery got the accolades in HS, he was quiet about it, never complained but always supportive. What I saw way back then was a shooter, like his brother Tyler, but a play maker that Tyler was not.
TJ was unbelievably durable for his skinny frame, never missing games, even when he was hurt. Some people block out pain. TJ always had bruises, deep long lasting ones, but he never let them stop him. When Emery got caught and then chose to bad mouth BYU and Rose, who came to his rescue, that did not sit well with me. I talked to TJ about it, knowing the Emery had been very close for so many years. TJ would not bad mouth Emery, just said that “he is going through some stuff” and had to sort through some things in life. TJ would not get caught up in that garbage or the whole LP3 thing. He just plowed forward until his Sr year when Pope shows up and adds the missing piece, Toolson, to a good BYU team. The big 3 as we call Childs, Toolson and TJ along with supporting cast of Seljaas, Lee, Harding and Nixon, could of played deep into the NCAAs and with the right opponents could of made a final 4 or even played for the NC.
Seeing our struggles at point makes me miss TJ even more. He started as a true Fr. and flourished. The main reason why I have been advocating giving Erickson a try.
Here is a good write up about BSU.
I was not aware of Akot, the Arizona transfer, he was a 5 star recruit and missed the Houston game. If he plays, I will make this a 50/50 game with BYU eking out the win at home (better 3 point shooting)
Go cougs.
Thanks for sharing that about Haws. He was a unique talent and sounds like even a better person and you are right, often we never miss them until they are gone
Chris, you nailed it with TJ. I have some ties with the BB team and particularly so when Tyler played. He also had that fantastic attitude and somehow seemed to have a smile on his face all the time. I was on the court talking to him right after our triple OT loss at Portland in 2014 (Tyler scored 48). Tyler was devastated and said we lost because he “missed too many shots.” He took all the blame. I said there wasn’t much to be happy about in that moment, but then he smiled and said, “Yeah, but I can’t wait to watch my little bro play for BYU.” Beaming with pride. TJ did his whole family proud, and his senior year with Coach Pope showed us all that TJ was everything that was advertised.
That said, I hope Erickson gets a shot, and Pope doesn’t look like he’s finished figuring out the way to dole out the minutes with so many new players.
Speaking of that game at UP: I have never seen a worse officiated game than that game. UP was, by design, holding Tyler on EVERY screen. I was close and could hear everything. The UP staff was literally yelling at their players to “be physical,” “make him fight through that screen,” “get your hands on him,” etc. The refs (crew chief GUESS WHO) let that game get WWWWAAAAAYYYY out of control early on. Tyler shot 14 FTs but should have shot at least 25. The reason he was only 17-34 shooting was because in my estimation he drew contact on 20-25 of those attempts. The crew established early that it was OK to hold Tyler, so the UP staff wisely doubled down. IT WAS BRUTAL. Coach Rose was going bonkers, so the response from the officials was to start calling every touch foul (on both teams), but continued to let the holding on Tyler go uncalled–they couldn’t start calling it, because they had established (by letting so much egregious fouling go uncalled) that it was not a foul. It would have embarrassed them to start calling it, and YOU KNOW WHO is an official who would MUCH rather be wrong than be embarrassed. Worst game ever to watch. After the game Tyler literally had scratches all over his body, but he didn’t complain or say a word about the officiating. He was a 1000000% class act for his entire career at BYU. And a funny, humble, happy, great kid off the court as well.
Thank you with additional details I didn’t know about that Tyler has scratches all over his body really bugs me. Jackson Emery said the same thing about Nick getting scratched all over his neck against Uta when Coach Kry wanted to cancel next time at BYU basketball game why so disturbing, coach cry and including AD Dr. Chris Hill
Those REFS should be ashamed of themselves for not being professional and nothing is being done to punish them.
I still do you watch both BYU football and basketball every year. But most of the time when it comes to WCC men’s basketball games I start to lose interest except during non-conference games
BSU exposed BYU. Sure they watched the USC game and being similar, they just poured on the juice.
Go at BA, too small. On D, give him enough room to shoot the long ball, he can’t hit it.
Lohner continues to make mistakes but why on earth would Pope bring him in for the final possession? He has never learned defense. Akot had just buried 2 straight 3s on Haward. You would think someone would cover the kid, enter Lohner and all you got to do is cover your guy. Nope, wide open, thank you very much, game! At this point, I would be working on getting Lowell more minutes and depend less on Lohner.
Harding has to be hampered by the knee. His game has regressed. It is sad, we really need him.
Lastly, Johnson is playing intelligent ball, Scale back BA’s minutes and give starter minutes to Johnson. We are toast if we can’t find guards who can drive and get past the pic.
Lohner, Harding and BA all had 25 minutes or more and ended with 2, 3 and 4 points respectively.
As a coach, you try to instill confidence and not bench a player but we are well into the year with Conference games starting and are still melting down, that 1st 8 minutes is the worst BYU basketball I have even seen. Props for scoring 50 in the 2nd half but you still lost, some of that is on the coach for having the wrong personal in for that final 30 seconds.