Mika can’t pass unless a player is open. But he has made some great passes this year. Announcers have been saying this every game. And I’m sure the NBA scouts are saying he’s a great passer 
As far as Dastrup, what has he done that you have this huge expectations for him? He doesn’t really want to play down on the post. He always moves out to the perimeter setting up to shoot a 3.
If that is the case then why not put him to the perimeter for a try? But he needs to be quicker on the floor but he still has this missionary rust and out of shape maybe holding him back.
He plays in garbage time so what difference does it make what he does? Rose doesn’t care what happens when the team is up by 30, nor does he seem to care much what happens when they get down double digits. It’s actually kind of a strange phenomena…
He set up a couple of times wide open but never got a pass. So, the question too is do his teammates want him to be shooting the 3?
I am really only interested in SMC and Gonzaga, and maybe Portland or SF, at this time. The bottom dwellers of the WCC are a broken record. Guard the 3 on defense and run them off the court. That is what Rose does. What he should be doing is working on bench chemistry (which Rose did plenty of against Pacific) and work on our weaknesses that SMC exposed and I saw zero work done last night. I think Rose is concerned with getting Bry the most minutes he can at this time so he is ready for the tough teams coming up. Bry looks for his shot too much when he should be driving to dish. He reminds me of Emery a lot…trying to do too much when you are surrounded by good shooters everywhere.
Haws continues to impress. He still has brain farts on defense and that is concerning but his get to the basket skills and court vision are serious weapons.
Apparently Monson (who is a negative hack) is advocating that I have been saying all along.
Has Dave Rose become Bronco Mendenhall, has he plateaued and needs to retire so that a new coach with fire takes us to where we want to go?
when I read his article I thought he had simply cribbed your ideas.
Personally I think the question is germane but a bit premature.
It isn’t that unusual for fans to get restless with their coaches as their careers draw near an end. Things got that way with Lavell Edwards. Fans began to feel he was maybe a little tired and didn’t have what it took to maintain a highly competitive program. It was good that Lavell didn’t try to coach longer than he did (70 yrs old) but look how hard it was to replace him. My understanding was that the head coach had to be LDS and carry a temple recommend. However, the girls new cross-country coach isn’t LDS so maybe there are ways around that now. Otherwise, your recruiting pool for new coaches is pretty small.
As far as Dave Rose is concerned, I think you bring up some very good points. But, is the answer to go shopping for another head coach? Dave Rose turns 60 yrs old this year and probably feels he has a little more tread left on his tires. His health issues are probably the X-factor for him. Rose is well liked by his players and respected by his peers. The administration likes him because he runs a clean and competitive program and he does a lot for the community. If Rose is relying on his assistant coaches to run the offense and defense the way Lavell did with football, maybe the answer is to tweek the staff. Is Nashiff getting the job done? I’m anxious to see what happens with a healthy Bryant on board. But, if the offense is under-performing, maybe Rose needs to find another assistant. i just am not close enough to the program to know what’s going on with the staff. It would help if Rose would communicate more with the diehard fans about what he is thinking with his substitutions, strategies, extensive use of the 1-3-1 defense, etc. We would all take comfort in knowing whether he has considered and addressed issues that seem to go against conventional thought.
Bryant has hight that Emery doesn’t. He can do more in the lane once his timing and legs are back. And he can shoot 3’s. Perhaps let Haws play the point and move Emery to the 3.
There had been rumblings for years but I never actually came out and said it until the UVU game. It was more like a wave of fans voicing our frustration for Rose’s lack of concern in terms of defense. Rose pulled off a series of high profile recruiting years in which he gets full credit for. He now has the talent at every single position, something he himself has craved since coming to BYU but how he uses that talent is how you grade the coach.
I hear fans say, give this young team a year to jell, 100% agree BUT there is no excuse for lazy defense. In the past BYU had to play zone defense to cover up our slow in-athletic team makeups. BYU has always recruited the Mr Basketball types, something I have written about extensively…these guys show up at BYU with gawdy numbers but they were protected by 4 other defensive minded players in their HS teams because they saved their energy for scoring. It becomes part of their DNA. When they make the transition from HS to D1 ball, you have to grab them and explain, “You don’t play defense on this team, you don’t play”!!!
Emery gets it, he has stepped up this year. He still has brain farts but he is as close a lock down guy as BYU has
Haws is improving leaps and bounds on turnovers, 3 point shooting and decision making but he has been abysmal on defense. He is deceptively strong and quick and hates hates losing so I’m sure he will become a consistent defender but he epitomizes the BYU Mr Basketball kid who never had to learn defense.
Bry has a huge upside and just needs experience. He just a lot like Emery, always looking for his shot and little else but I think he will become a different creature next year
Beo continues to impress me with his understanding of the game. He rarely plays out of control. He makes any team better.
Rose’s foot problems makes him a shadow of himself but he certainly understands the game and should mentor the youngsters.
I will cover the bigs at another time but the WCC is all about guarding the guards and Coach Rose is abysmal so he either needs to turn the defense over at an assistant coach or retire if he wants to get past the losing on the road and choking on the big games, which he always does. In a nut shell, Rose does not play “Value Possession” Ball.
Quincy Lewis was hired last year to be the defensive coordinator the way Nashiff handles the O.
The defense improved over the course of the year last year.
Abysmal as it has been this year, it is still statistically better than it was by the end of last year.
Still not where it needs to get.
But getter closer to where it was when . . .
Thanks! Very good insights. I went to the UVU game and was appalled like everyone else at how poorly BYU played on defense. Rose brought Lewis on specifically to coach the defense. So, who is more to blame, Rose or Lewis? I guess you’re convinced that its Rose. Monson may be a negative hack but Rose can’t ignore what the local newspapers are putting out there about his job of coaching. Unless he’s oblivious to general tone of BYU fans, he has to be feeling the heat. Steve Cleveland is fun to hear cover the games because you know he has the ear of Dave Rose, he goes to practices, and he will catch his ear. Cleveland touted SMC as the best defensive team in the league, including Gonzaga. He thought the SMC game was a great learning experience so the BYU players could see what it is like to play good defense and how far they have to go to be a ranked team. I think comments like his are making it back to Rose and his staff. Cleveland also commented several times about Pacific and that BYU wouldn’t be having their way with Pacific if Pacific knew how to play defense. I guess my point in all of this is that multiple sources are reaching out to Rose and his staff and they would have to be oblivious to not know what fans and observers are saying about how well (or poorly) this team is coached. So, if nothing changes over the next few weeks, then there will likely be an up-swelling of calls for a change. Let’s see if the team and staff learned anything after playing SMC.
Good assessment on the guards. I wish Beo would work on his free throws. I watched him drain 10 3pt shots in a row during warm-ups at St Marys. I don’t have any explanation for his poor FT shooting. It will come sooner or later.
I am high on Bryant just as you are. The other players say he and Aytes are the strongest players on the team. He reminds me of Kyle Collinsworth size and strengthwise. I think he’s faster and obviously shoots much better. Kyle was a terrific player and I’d love to have him playing on this team but I do think Elijah will become as impactful if he keeps working on his game. I doubt he will ever get many triple doubles but he can become very good.
I agree that Emery has improved his defense. He can shut down the small, quick guards in the league. I really hope Bryant develops as a good defender because with his size and strength he’ll be able to match-up better with the bigger guards in the league that Emery may struggle with.
Haws is going to continue to improve as you said. But, Davin Guinn, and Colby Leifson have seen their stock fall in recent games in my opinion.
that is the second time you have mentioned Cleveland. I hope! I am not a believer that he can change the culture that he created. You would have to become Randy Bennett, that is the sad reality
Wrubell just tweeted this:
BYU faces USF Thursday at the Marriott Center; Dons from the arc in non-conference play: 41.3%. Dons from the arc in conference play: 27.5%.
BYU from the arc in non-conference play: 32.8%. Cougs from the arc in conference play: 45.2%.
BYU guards’ shooting from the arc, in league play: Leifson 60%, Haws 50%, Bryant 50%, Beo 50%, Rose 40%, Emery 39%. As a guard group: 46.4%.
I think there was a sea change after Cleveland left.
As I recall by the time he left folks were well past the point they are right now with Rose.
And he didn’t have the immediately brighter future ahead.
Or the past and current success that Rose has.
Here is the breakdown for the guards in league play:
Leifson 3-5=60%
Rose 2-5=40%
Bryant 4-8=50%
Beo 4-8=50%
Guinn 1-2=50%
Haws 10-20=50%
Emery 9-23=39%
Emery and Haws are our volume shooters but that’s a little deceptive since Bryant missed the first two league games. You will probably see Bryant, Haws and Emery as our volume shooters provided everybody stays healthy.
He didn’t have the players Rose has. Before you say it, yeah he wasn’t a great recruiter. You are the poster child for content BYU fan, happy with the “success” and fine with 3rd place finishes in the west coast conference. That should make you very happy at the end of the season.
Far from happy with it. actually.
Rose’s successes were almost exclusively in the MWC. He has talent finally to do something. Even he thought so this year. The farther it gets into the season the less likely it looks that this team will improve on the past 5 years in WCC play.
Few is a HoF coach. So different level of competition for the top of the conference. Without Few in the way 3 league regular season titles would have been Rose’s.
I just don’t see the need to blather on about the weaknesses the way you do.
Things are far better now than under Cleve, and for that matter any time since Anderson. Plenty of room of improvement but still Rose has done better than most any other BYU coach in my lifetime–and the others in the discussion are all arguable.
disregard this post
I take it the answer is no. They want him under the basket