Outside of Mika, the rest of the team was 17 for 49. That’s roughly 35% or so. The starting guards shot a whopping 5 for 19 from 3 point range. And that’s with getting decent looks. Most high school teams outperform that week in and week out. Yea, I’ll admit I’m negative, but garbage stats like that deserve to be called out. As do really dumb passes like Emery’s that basically closed the door on BYU. As does weak rebounding, like Leifson’s great position on the rebound but inability to hand on to it.
I have no problem calling out good play and Mika is playing well, but poor play is poor play and this far in the season, we have way too much of that. That interior defense we played in the first half was about the worst mess you’ll see. Nobody inside, including Mika, was defending worth beans inside in that man to man and Rose should have gotten out of it much earlier in the first half. Kafusi will help that, nonetheless, that bad interior D comes from two things - bad body position on the court in relationship to the opposite player and second lazy sideway foot movement. How many times does a guy have to back you down and take a little right handed hook before you get your rear just a hair more to that side and make an effort to stop that move. We never did the entire first half!
I really don’t believe any more that this team has the overall talent to be more than a slightly better than average team, which will just about get you a 20 win season in the WCC. In the old WAC or Mountain West, with good Utah, San Diego State, UNLV and New Mexico teams, this would be a 16 - 17 win team only. People gloat about Roses 20 win seasons, but that record would likely not stand had that league continued. These recent teams since Fredette are not even remotely as talented as the good teams of the 70 - 90 and would get smashed by any number of those teams. Can you imagine a team of Ainge, Roberts, Kite, Durant, Craig and the like playing these guys? Or Cosic with Bernie Fry, Jim Kelly, Miller and Tulstrup? And I’m leaving out some good teams. Our current team would lose 10 out of 10 hands down. And to me, that’s frustrating because we are always given to believe we are bringing in top quality guys, but so many of them never perform up to any good level. Could that have something to do with coaching? I don’t know, but I do think losing Pope was big.
If that last shot by Emery had gone in, we wouldn’t be quite as frustrated about this team. Just when we think we have turned the corner with this team, there is another setback. You could hear the disappointment in Rose’s voice as he talked about the performance. Rose mentioned how the plan this year was to play Bryant 30 minutes a game. He was that valuable based on what he was doing in practices. Who knows when they’ll get him back. The other frustrating thing is that our guards continue to struggle with 3pt shooting as you mentioned. Haws was 1-7. I have to think that it is just due to inexperience and that he’ll start knocking down those shots on a more consistent basis. Emery was okay (3-8) but not great shooting 3pt shots but his 2pt shooting was terrible (2-7) and only 60% from the line.
10 of 15 players are under classmen. They are going to make errors. What you failed to mention is ILL. is a really talented good shooting team. Really big inside with hops. Then, their 3 point shooters are good.
Both teams had 12 turnovers and some bad passes. That will happen. Emery throws 1 really bad pass and you are all over him.
I agree about position. Same in offense. Only Emery gets in a triple threat position. Beo never did and actually had some opportunities to shoot or drive. However, the 2-3 zone was good.
Emery was 3-7 without the last second half court attempt. 42%.
Haws shoots differently every time. He rarely gets his feet under him and goes up for his shot. He’s leaning forwards, to the sides. But, he’s the only one that can break down a defense. Emery sometimes can but Haws does. He just has to stay under control better. The reason he doesn’t is he’s physically weak.
Yeah, Haws will be good eventually. You see glimpses of him being a special player but he’s got a ways to go. I think most of us see the chances of an NCAA bid slipping before our eyes and its frustrating after so much anticipation for this particular class. BYU may still rally and surprise the WCC but so far, it doesn’t look too promising. The real bright spot continues to be the play of Eric Mika. Here is a guy that is absolutely living up to his billing and then some.
It’s taking Haws longer to get used to the college level and get his legs back. Aside from that, we played well against 2 very good teams. We had several opportunities in this game after falling behind 16 points. Which goes to this point. Why do all our teams seem to start off slow?
Take away the time in the first half when Mika was sitting because of two fouls, and BYU won this game.
I suspect Kaufusi would have done the job on defense during that time.
I am really looking forward to Mika at forward and Kaufusi at center.
The WCC teams not named smc or Gonzaga will not be able to compete well against the BYU inside out game. So avoid blunders split with SMC and Gonzaga as per usual and bubble team as usual.
If this team can beat, Princeton and Colorado and play Ill on the road and Valpo at neurtral all of which it has done. It will do better than usual in the high school gymnasiums some of which are smaller than Beo’s hs home court.
All this assumes they don’t look past a team the way they did UVU…I think it was good that the UVU happened…the team is much better now.
So telling were the lineups over the last 10 minutes of the game. Injuries have really hurt this team in a big way. For Leifson and Shaw to be in there tells the story. LJ Rose is a shadow of himself. Davis just needs to get that knee cleaned out and hope he is ready for the WCC grind but as he is, he is worthless to the team…We need Bryant in the worst way.
I am afraid that Mika is gone after this season. he is the team at this point.
Haws…you know that feeling you get when you bit off too much to chew? Here is a guy that has all the tools to be big time and yet for some diluted reason he believed that his skinny little body would hold up to guys that hit the weights every single day. A lot of mission rust but the true problem here is no muscle mass.
The refs did us no favors when they called ghost fouls on Mika and Childs. Without Davis and I have no idea why Dastrup can’t get into a game, Mika and Childs would have fouled out in minutes the way the game was called early. Ill. did a masterful job at going right at Mika from the get go…recipe for teams scouting BYU
Rose looks tired, worn out. Granted, this team is rife with injury, LJ is hardly the player that he once was. Davis needs to get the knee cleaned out now and hopefully come back late in the season but as he is, he is worthless out there. Bryant could have gone a long way to helping out against IU’s athletic guards but it boils down to coaching. I differ on the talent idea, I just think that Coach Rose has lost his fire. I do not see many plays being run and to have the lineups so late in the game with Shaw or Leifson screams that this team has some true issues right now.
I had a conversation with a D1 power forward who went elsewhere (He would not like to see his name here so that’s all you get), he said that Rose’s coaching style and the recruitment of LP3 is the reason why he looked elsewhere.
This team, right now, suffers from injury, no doubt and probably a lot from mission rust, I know that Haws is frustrated with his game and where his body is and there is no doubt that Dastrup is not in game shape or he would be out there…can anyone get me some info on that dude? He was an ESPN top 100 and yet there he sits, can’t even get into a game, could the Coach be red shirting him? hasn’t he played in too many games? Where was Guinn on IU’s Hill that I thought would happen? Why was Leifson in at the end, where was Beo? Why Shaw? There are a lot of issues we just don’t know about and it is just too weird right now.
Let’s be more clear about what happened with Mika at like the 11:30 mark of the first half. He was coming out of the game soon anyways for a breather. Against big teams, Aytes is not a viable substitute. Dastrup should have been in there. Even Shaw at first.
Another area was turning the ball over on bad angle passes. Everyone did it. Almost all of them led to points off of turnovers.
Emery turns the ball over when he’s gassed. But, when he goes out, same thing happens to this team as when Mika is out. Too if the sophomore leaders.
The small gyms may help with shooting this year with all the young players.
Kaufusi gives us very little on offense. So, not sure how he will do against big teams.
His LP3 issue is just that…Some good players came because of the LP3. and that he didn’t want to compete with Mika says loads about himself and/or his estimate of how good Mika is.
That he doesn’t like Rose’s coaching style…is a legit reason to go elsewhere. That is after all one of the major reason recruiting exists to give players the ability to see how well they mesh with a coach and the team.
I give you hundreds of players who went elsewhere…Frank Jackson for the most obvious…because of Rose’s coaching style.
Coaches get paid enough money that hanging on to a coach because he’s a good guy and may have a hard time finding another job never should enter the discussion. Rose may be sitting on his laurels a bit. ESPN sports commentators always talk up the accomplishments of a coach and you wonder if they don’t start to believe it. It looks like we are having another year where BYU doesn’t challenge for a WCC championship or make the NCAAs. Maybe its time to shake the program up a bit. Regardless, you have to let the season play out and see how the coaches deal with some adversity.
Beo had minutes in the first half and didn’t produce-that’s why he wasn’t in there. Haws had same shooting % as Emery and more rebounds and more assists. Beo is shooting under 10% for the year and zero from the foul line. BYU lost because they couldn’t defend the paint in the first half and Haws and Emery couldn’t hit critical open looks in the second half-simple math-still had a chance to win and BYU received more free throws by far than Illinois.
I agree. Haws has another issue. Mechanics. Footwork and body position is an issue. A lot of that is he’s getting pushed around. Physically, he’s weak from lack of workouts. He needs to get in the weight room and seriously get stronger from top to bottom. If he will do this, he has a lot of talent.