Ok, I’m sick of this.
How would you defend/attack St. Mary’s? I have my ideas but this is not the way to do it.
Circle these 2 games next year. I don’t care if we lose half our games next year if we can’t beat these guys twice. Whatever that takes.
I can’t stand this team and I want to imitate them.
Landale dominated and the officials allowed him to do whatever he wanted to on both ends of the floor. He does not commit fouls and he gets a lot of calls.
It’s too bad the officiating was so bad in the last 5 minutes… that is when the game was lost.
Tonight I agree with you. I hate the inconsistent college refs in general, but tonight was horrible. If that’s what they do, then you have to foul hard and get your monies worth. Tell Worthington and dastrup you won’t play them ever again if they don’t foul out in the last 5 minutes.
SM and Landale will get their 52% shooting. We played decent defense but that’s not where we lose. Both teams shot 54 shots. We made 6 fewer and lost. Before the game I said we have to have all 5 starters make their shots and do well. The big 3 were so-so even with wide open shots and some layups. The other 2 missed shots. Too many and the subs have us nothing. The 3 post players Nixon, Worthington and Dastrup gave us nothing on offense. They need to put in 8-12 points as I keep saying.
And I’d rather those shots come from the paint and contested, than open threes. There was a lot of confusion about who was supposed to be where. Make narr shoot to beat you.
Have to take open 3’s…
Perhaps I was unclear. I meant I would rather force them off the 3 point line than surrender open threes. Their shots, not ours.
Good thing I fell a sleep in the 2nd half. I couldn’t stand what I was hearing during the 1st half. That last 5 minutes sound like same old story that really put me to sleep…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I won’t watch the replay.
Sorry this game was lost on defense. Too many late rotations allowing critical threes, but this is what SM,s does. Granted, the officiating was skewed the last 5 minutes, but road teams in the WCC find that pretty often. Bennett is a good coach-he probably gets more out of his team’s talent than any other coach in the conference. St Mary’s can be beat-you are just going to have to be as disciplined as they are. Look for Gonzaga to beat SM in the tourney and both of them to go to the dance. SM will not make the NCAA’s next year and BYU will be in a dog fight with Gonzaga and San Diego next year providing everyone stays.
Jim Hawks said Gonzaga is the “Darling.” I said today both “Zags/SMC” are the Darlings. Next year will be “Zags/SD” will be the Darlings.
I want out of this wcc.
https://twitter.com/gregwrubell
before last night, BYU was averaging 16.7 personal fouls per game; BYU was called for 16 fouls last night.
Before last night, BYU opponents were averaging 19.1 fouls per game, and SMC was averaging 15.6; Gaels were whistled for 12 fouls, a season-low for a BYU opponent.
Mark Durrant
I’ve been calling games for 21 years. I haven’t ever seen a player more protected by refs than Landale (except maybe Harden)
A historical look at St Marys: Play at home, never play anyone of importance. WCC refs will protect their darlings. Play in post season and get beat in the first round. Crappy rec league, crappy home for BYU
I am tired of BYU losing to St. Marys. They had their opportunity at home and couldn’t close it out. Now they will have to wait until the WCC tournament to have an opportunity to beat them but they may not get the opportunity because BYU and Gonzaga may be in the same bracket and then BYU would have to beat Gonzaga for another shot at St. Marys. It looks like another NIT year. I see only two ways around it: Win the rest of the conference games and win one, probably two in the conference tournament, or win the tournament.
There is one game left BYU is not likely to win and that is Gonzaga on the road. I would rate Gonzaga at home and San Diego on the road as toss ups. I think the best we can hope for in league is only one more loss. It wouldn’t a surprise if there are 3 more.
Maybe we should hope for an NIT bid and then win the thing. We have been close a few times.
Yes, our strategy must incorporate the poor officiating. This is getting old.
Stepping away from that, I think we needed more sets to challenge Naar with Hardnet and to get Landale isolated on a guard more often.
I do think the game was lost on defense and I think if you make it your purpose in life to prevent them from getting open threes, they are beatable. If landale goes for 40, fine. But don’t let anyone else loose and attack landale exclusively on defense to force him to foul a smaller guard.
Of course if the refs don’t call the fouls, then you just have to tell worthington and dastrup to spend their 5 fouls had fouling him. If that’s the kind of game the refs want…
This so much. Circle this game and make it the super bowl. Do whatever you have to be the more disciplined team. This team is not beating us with superior athleticism. Landale is no Mika. Naar isn’t a freak of nature. They’re smart and disciplined but they can be beaten if you out do them at their own game.
And honestly, the same discipline we need to beat St. Mary’s is what we will need to dominate the rest of the conference. Gonzaga is always special, but we have the athletes to compete with them, St. Mary’s doesn’t. They win by discipline.
There are those rare teams that can beat you with coaching, discipline, and smarts. They may not beat Kentucky or Duke but they will beat teams with better athletes. Athleticism is a big deal but it can be beaten up to a point. St. Mary’s is where Gonzaga was about 15 years ago. They are good because they are well coached and disciplined. Gonzaga in the past couple of years has had some athletic players.
St. Mary’s won a game in the NCAA tournament last year. They were put out by Arizona in a game that was close.They made the sweet 16 in 2010. They deserve some respect. They will never win a national championship but they will compete year after year with less athletic, but well coached, smart, and skilled players who can shoot the ball and don’t beat themselves. Well coached, smart, and being able to shoot the ball will cover up for lack of athleticism to a point. You can be very competitive but will probably never win the big prize. Some schools have players with the aforementioned qualities who are also athletic. Very few teams will beat those teams. Duke comes to mind as a school who consistently has athletic, and smart, players. Sometimes you get teams like a few of the recent Kentucky teams that are so over the top in athleticism that they can get away with average in game coaching and average smarts and discipline. You just put them on the floor and tell them to do their thing and then send them off to the pros after 1 or 2 years and reload.
That’s a long ramble but I think BYU will be served to follow the St. Marys’ model rather than the Kentucky model. BYU will never get Kentucky caliber players but they can get a few top 100 recruits and coach them up. They can recruit better athletes than St. Marys but they are a lot closer in talent to St. Marys than Kentucky. I think BYU could make a final four with the kind of players they recruit but it will require a bit different formula than they have followed. Butler made 2 final fours with the kind of talent BYU usually has. I know Gordon Hayward played on one of those teams but the one that finished runner up in 2011 didn’t have Hayward and to the best of my knowledge it didn’t have any future NBA players. With Brandon Davies I think BYU would have beaten the 2011 Butler team. They were on schedule to be a number 1 seed and it went up in smoke.
The refs called 6 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half. That hurt our moment and gave SM foul shots that they wouldn’t have had towards the end. But, again, we have to be able to make layups and open shots to win. We didn’t and shot poorly. 40%. Not good enough against 52% SM.
Landale is for real. Don’t minimize him he can score at will. We win by shooting 52% like they do. They don’t miss 5 or 6 layups. We do. They make the “and ones.” We don’t. We have to practice much harder at this. Bryant is the only one that consistently can do this. Strength training and hard work on the off season.
I actually really like St. Marys when they aren’t playing BYU. They show what can be done with less physical talent but smarts and fundamental basketball skills. I root for them against everybody but us. The same goes for Gonzaga. I have always been a big Gonzaga fan from the time they nearly made the final 4 in around 1999 to last year when they finally made it. St. Marys and Gonzaga are about the level BYU should be on year after year but haven’t been for awhile now.
I can live with BYU losing to those two if they can bat around .500 against them which they haven’t done on a consistent level. The losses that drive me crazy are the ones to anybody else in the conference.
I have always felt like BYU should split with Gonzaga and St. Marys and almost never lose to anybody else in the conference, A loss to a WCC bottom feeder shouldn’t occur more than once every 2-3 years.
good post-BYU had more talent but failed to execute when it mattered at home and frankly forced the ball too much in the second half last night. SM never seemed to get rattled-they werent perfect, but they never deviated from their game plan and moved the ball much better in the 2nd half. Senior dominated team, hopefully BYU can show the same mentality the next two years-people can rail about the officiating all they want and there were some poor no calls, but in the end it was sticking to the game plan not the officiating that won this game. Landale may not be the most athletic guy out there, but he plays smart and with his size dominates the post. Overall a good assessment on your part