the only saving grace is that USU is playing just as badly…wow
Didn’t get to watch the game. But, when you are negative I assume it’s much better than you say. I don’t see anything in the stats that say BYU is playing badly except for 3 point shooting. USU free throw shooting looks really bad too. Other than that. BYU wins another road game and an instate victory!
10 minutes into the game your beloved cougars had scored a total of 5 points. With 7 minutes left in the first half the cougs had scored 12 whole points…couldn’t get much more putrid…then the jitters disappeared and voila a win going away.
In most games, BYU starts off slowly. Same in Football. But, after a perfect game against UVU, you and others expect perfection. I like the fact we won another road game. Cannon is fitting in well.
My take on the team so far.
Child’s, to me, is more effective than Mika was last year. More of a team player and better defense and rebounds/scores just as well.
Haws is below average at this point on offense and a very poor defensive player. He literally cannot stay in front of anyone. Cannon will start eating his minutes if he can’t get his shot back. He must be around 25% from the field.
Cannon is a pleasant surprise after 2 games. Could really help this team.
Elijah is tough and good penetrator/finisher and plays D. Extremely important for team to have him and Childs on floor a lot
Sejaas unable to create his own shot hence easily taken out of offensive production. Can’t hit contested threes but has to be guarded as he can hit open threes.
All bigs other than Childs are journeymen players at this point with some sound defense but not to be counted on for offense.
Other guard play very average.
Defense is much more sound this year so the new hire paid off. Offense still needs work. I thought the UVU game was two steps forward and this game was a step back. BYU cannot expect to beat the better teams in the conference shooting in the low 40’s, with threes in the twenties. If Haws doesn’t improve he may have to sit more (the Lone Peak three sure didn’t turn out the way we all hoped, did they!)
Scott will tell us the wins indicate real progress, but I think the play of our opponents has been generally poor and I don’t see conference games being played that badly. Some are now predicting 25 wins or so. I say hold your horses. We could do that, but only if someone besides Bryant becomes a strong third option (possible Cannon could be that guy) and if one more big guy separates himself from the journeymen crowd and becomes a consistent 10 point player with good defense. I just don’t know if any of then can, but Childs can’t play 35-40 minutes a night as the only force down low.
We’ll see. I think they can be better than last year if not much better, but to do so will require a few more guys to step up.
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the question is who?
TJ could last year he started slow too
Dastrup? Worthington has improved but minutes seem to be inconsistent and dropping
Shaw and Andrus remain possibilities I suppose.
Hardnett start looking for his shot? possibly if the coaches choose to ride him about it.
Nixon seems the most likely possibility other than Cannon.
Nixon’s size would be a better difference maker.
A lot of interesting points in this thread.
Honestly my expectations or hopes for this team are low and mostly focused on team and player development. I think we’ll get 20 wins, but I’m most interested in seeing a winning culture develop and good habits while exploring and developing strategies.
-team defense is improving, keep that up
-less panicking when things go wrong. Don’t get frustrated if your shots aren’t falling
-Fluidly adapt to the defense… Don’t force things.
-let free bigs shoot more when they’re wide open except Worthington.
-Play around with lineups
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All good valid points and I believe they will work towards them. Cannon is a good stabilizer for this team and they will get better. Still a 3rd place finish for this team, because they are inexperienced without much depth. It is what it is so we might as well enjoy the games. Defense is way better than last year and Cannon is a better team player than Emery so I don’t think that will hurt us!
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Perhaps the reason the other teams are playing poorly is because of our defense. You said our defense is much better. So, it would follow other teams would look worse. So, according to you, I’m correct 
Your take is pretty darn good. Defense is way up with exception of Haws who is stealin church money, can’t defend and takes some outlandish shots. Cannon will eat his minutes until Haws wises up and plays within the team game.
In past years Haws and Emery got away with a lot of crap just because there was no one on the bench to replace them. Hardnett and Cannon both play within the system and they are two steps up on defense so we certainly don’t miss Emery and Haws better watch out for his minutes.
Haws can be real good and I’m sure that he will adapt or sit. I like the makeup of this team with exception of Center. Worthington is still a foul a minute and he has little upside. I’m hoping that Andrus can be that guy because Dastrup can’t get minutes. But I do think that this team proved something this week by winning 2 on the road.
Worthington is my Rudi. Don’t talk bad about him. kidding…a little.
This is a huge point for me. I like guys who stick in the system even when they’re talented. There’s always the time to step out of it opportunistically, but sometimes Hawes, and others, get nervous and start pushing the pace and forcing things. That gets us out of rhythm.
By the way, I couldn’t watch the game last night but it sounded like we were playing too fast? anybody watch that?
Stop with the bearing false witness against Haws and stealing Church money.
Haws: Agreed. If you’re not gonna play D, you better score in high volume and with a good % or your teammates will turn on you faster than the fans do.
Cannon and Hardnett: KEYS to anything new and improved on D. They are strong, fast, athletic and committed to staying between their guy and the hoop. Last year we had Haws or Emery on the PG, but Haws can’t stay in front of his guy, and Emery was more interested in cheating for steals or breakouts; the result was tons of penetration, big men coming to the ball, and WIDE OPEN THREES all day long. This year we won’t be great, but I think the simple ability to limit dribble penetration makes our overall D way better.
Bigs: other than Childs, meh, nothing to see there. Just a few big guys trying hard but limited in what they can do.
I think last week showed that with our new defensive ability we will be able to beat most of the teams we should beat, and that gets you a 20 win season. Most of the time.
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PS I don’t mean to suggest that losing Emery is a net gain–I think he is an incredible athlete. He just seemed to get beat off the dribble a lot because he’s always going for the steal or trying to run out. Just different priorities than Hardnett or Cannon.
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Bad decisions usually lead to ruined careers. In this case, I hope Emery comes back and plays for BYU again, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t try and follow the Mika trail and sign on with a European team and make it in the pros. He is a good enough athlete to help some team if he has his head on straight. BYU probably needs to expand their recruiting parameters and go after more foreign players like St Mary’s has done and many other teams and something BYU used to do regularly. Hasn’t been much love for Emery, but I don’t think you can deny the talent and the hustle of the kid. Good luck to him.
I have zero gripes about this team other than Haws started the game by 3 missed bombs and a lazy pass. The bombs were too long, too early in the shot clock and were bricks. When BYU settled down and ran their offense, at about the 6 minutes in the half mark BYU was still under 10 points, We hit 28 points for the 1st half largely because Haws was sitting on the bench and BYU made their run.
In the 2nd half, Haws played good ball, played within the flow of the offense and he ends up with 10 points. Cannon on the other hand scores 17 points and never took a bad shot in either the UVU game or the USU game.
Last year BYU had no stoppers on D, our closest guy would have been Emery and as you say, Emery cheated for steals and that left us exposed, getting our bigs unnecessary fouls and wide open 3s. I am very happy that Emery and the whole LP3 entitlements are gone from the team. Emery would have taken this BYU team in a far different path had he stayed with the team. These Mr basketball types that Rose has fondly gone after all have the same thing in common…they did not learn good defense. Emery, Haws and Seljaas are were Mr basketball guys and you just can’t have more then one of them on the floor at the same time or bad things happen.
Now we have several stoppers on the team. Keep in mind that Bryant was injured for most of the season last year but I consider Bryant a stopper, Hardnett can be a lockdown type of guy. Cannon, another stopper. Childs is a stopper. When I get time I will look at the first 8 games of last year vs our 8 for this season and I will bet that there is a 20 point swing in our defensive stopiness. hahahaha
OK, I do have a 2nd gripe…Worthington is still a foul a minute and Dastrup is getting no minutes. BYU needs inside help for Childs in the worse way. Where are you Andrus and Shaw.
Dastrup needs minutes to play through his bad habits and eventually break through. Keep putting him in and he screws up, you bench him for a minute, talk him through it and then throw him back out there. Not the best way to play basketball but benching a guy helps them learn and he can still get 15 minutes that way. And please let Nixon shoot when he’s wide open!
Keys to the future…that’s what I care about.
And yes, all hail the defense. If the Marriot center made a point out of being as excited for a guy staying in front of his man as they did a three pointer we would have a sound defense in no time.
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I really think the inability or lack of interest in our on-ball defense last year caused all the trouble. I know I’m like a broken record, but every game last year was just a series of possessions where their PG beat ours on the ball, guys started to rotate, bigs came down to help, and in the end there was almost ALWAYS somebody WIDE OPEN hitting a three. It’s like our motto on D was, “Hey, score all you want, cuz then we can jack up more 3s!” For me it all starts and ends with staying between the PG and the rim, and it looks like we now have 2 guys who are committed to that and have the strength and quickness to actually do it. Losing Mika is of course a HUGE blow, but I think our new defensive minded PGs may actually allow us to have about the same level of success as last year, even without Mika.
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