I was very encouraged by BYU’s effort @Baylor. Those guards are elite and BYU went toe to toe until the end. Pope has got to keep his cool, refs on the road can be brutal. This next game with UCF is not nearly the same talent level. Every P4 team has beat them, #68 K St man handled them at home.
UCF is guard heavy, built like a WCC team. Most all their production comes from guards and one forward.
On D, BYU needs to know where Jr. 6’4 Sellers is at all times. Sr. Avery 6’7 is a great 3pt shooter and 6’1 Jr. Johnson. UCF has height but BYU should be able to handle them and get plenty of scores from Foos and watch out for Khalifa, will he get 10 assists in this one?
On O, BYU needs to be patient, get those wide open shots from 3land. Back cuts with Khalifa. Get a lead and watch to TOs. I predict that Robinson is due for a big game.
Vegas has this on as a 74-68 win.
I’ll say BYU gets to 80
One thing that bothers me is that for some reason, with Kahlifi on the floor, players start the back cuts and then stop and he throws the ball away. Players know he’s going to pass it and they have to keep running.
They better or they won’t win. BYU’s wins come when they score at least 75. Their losses come when they score less than 70. That is a defining benchmark.
As for stating that BYU will win the game I cannot do that. Of course I hope they win but based on what I have seen so far in the Big 12, I am not going to get my hopes up too high. The recipe for beating BYU has been laid out, if UCF follows that recipe they have a better than good chance of winning. The game is in Orlando and as far as I know UCF is not a religious school and their coach doesn’t have any technical fouls because of clueless officials. Advantage UCF.
Now you are claiming that both technical fouls should not have been called? You think this is Freshman high school basketball and you are the referee
As I recall, you got a lot of exercise running up and down the court never blowing your whistle.
You were like Bill. Run up and down and never blow the whistle. I go a technical once from Bill
I asked him if I paid him $50 if he would stop running and blow his whistle at least one time for a foul. He “T” me.
I didn’t say anything about the technicals being called or not. I’m not arguing that point. I said Pope was justified in his actions. The fact that he got called for a technical was not the issue.
I was a good official, whether you think so or not. I did varsity games my second year and that didn’t happen but rarely. I was assigned more games than most new officials because the guy in charge liked me and knew I was objective and fair.
Boy, did not see the Kansas lose coming, and they only made it to 60. Time to recalibrate.
was listening to Cougar talk radio. Two things popped out:
Hall has been a bust at Point (Dah, what have I been talking about pretty much since last year)
It got so bad, Pope had Robinson bringing up the ball for a good chunk last game.
2- Gotta get Saunders more time
Kansas lost because of several stats:
1 They turned the ball over 18 times
2 UCF got 8 steals and 7 blocks
3 UCF had way more FTs and makes…14-16 vs. Kansas 6-11 (to your point Jim)
Kansas shot far better from the field (51% for the game to UCF’s 42%) so the game was lost on TOs and FTs. These are two glaring weaknesses for BYU and the reason why Pope has pushed the panic button on Hall.
UCF is ranked #17 on defense before the Kansas game and from what I can tell, Kansas lost this game by overlooking UCF bigtime. And to be honest, Kansas is just not dominate this year, ranked 50th on offense.
UCF kept 2 of their guards, Sellers and Johnson, for virtually the entire game and 2 others for over 30 minutes. What UCF did do right was shut down Kansas’s inside game and Kansas guards did not help out with the scoring. ball game.
BYU is an entirely diff. offensive team. Outside of Foos baby hooks inside, Khalifa plays 20’ out as a surgical assist man.
Maybe BYU does not get to 80 but we are better fire power.than the 60 that Kansas put up.
Like everyone says, Every game in the Big 12 is a tournament game. 0 nights off. and you better win at home.
And, while foul shooting is important, there are the other factors that cause this and compliment more fouls like turnovers. Turnovers were an issue the last 2 games. Gave Baylor more opportunities to get fouled. We also shot less 3s even though shooting percentage on them was much better than with Cincinnati. Games aren’t lost just because of refs. That’s why that study is so flawed and should be discarded. Just like climate change liberal interpretation of facts should be discarded. Just an analogy.
The lack of coaching and clanking of missed 3s DOOMED BYU in the Cinn game. We also SUCKED at 18 TOs but Cinn matched us or we would of lost by 25. That game stunk so bad, I ripped up my BYU love card and burned it.
Pope had the team ready for Baylor, to give him credit but Pope also has to have a contingent plan for when Hall goes awol. A diel of Johnson, Robinson, Saunders, Khalifa and Knell or Foos suits me fine
I saw the highlights and pretty much every scoring basket from the game. UCF played a great game and were helped by the fact that they shot significantly more free throws than Kansas did. It’s hard to understand how that happened but only 3 people at that game had the authority and ability to make that a reality. When one team goes to the free throw line a significant number of times more than the other team, their chances of winning the game go way up. That is exactly what happened in BYU’s first two league games. Had Cincinatti and Baylor shot significantly fewer free throws than BYU, we wouldn’t be having this discussion and BYU would likely be 2-0 instead of 0-2.
The question is, why did they go to the line more often? As Fish pointed out in another post, the guards were quicker, stronger and caused the reaching and bumping that the refs called the fouls on. Cincinatti did that as well as Baylor in the 2nd halves. BYU and now Kansas did not make the necessary adjustments on defense to slow some of that down. See if we do that tomorrow.
Your take is that the refs want certain teams to win. Sometimes because it’s their home floor. Sometimes they are bigots against certain religions. As Pope said Wednesday night, he was sure that some of the fouls were bad calls until he reviewed them and then he praised the refs. He said that they are really, really good. He will still have to have stronger water bottles You need to put aside this fear complex that everyone hates the Church.
Its his only hope of catching a break here or there going forward and surely the only thing that may help BYU’s cause is to get a helpful call from the refs once in a blue moon. He’s desperate, had no choice but to praise the officials and tell them how great they are.
I got this information from one of the top betting sites, they think BYU will cover the 5.5 point spread and win the game. It’s interesting that they give statistical information that refutes some of the things posters have been saying here. Everything points to a BYU win except the effect that the officials will have. I think BYU will win because I am hopeful, but it may take a few Pope water bottle slams, to get the officials attention, to keep them from falling into the “don’t make calls for BYU” funk that so often happens.
"BYU has some of the best ball movement and the best jump-shooting in the entire country in Pope’s system.
The Cougars move the ball constantly and generate elite open 3s, and thus far, the Cougars have knocked them down at an elite rate. BYU ranks inside the top five in both assist-to-field-goal-made rate and 3-point attempt rate.
This approach makes BYU a bit of a high-variance team, but it runs so fast in transition and doesn’t rely on just one or two players to make 3s. The Cougars have four high-volume shooters making at least 36% from beyond the arc and two guys shooting above 40%.
Teams have to be able to effectively guard spacing when they face BYU, and that isn’t a strength of the UCF defense. The Knights rank outside the 100 defensively in guarding spacing and preventing open 3s, per ShotQuality.
Both of these offenses rank inside the top 50 in transition offense, per ShotQuality, and neither defense excels in that area. The Cougars are elite on the glass and should be able to control the transition game as a result of that.
UCF is at its best when it can force turnovers and run off them, but BYU’s offense is top-40 nationally in protecting the ball."
I’ll bet nobody here thought BYU was top 40 nationally in protecting the ball. Isn’t that why they lost their last 2 games? because they are so bad with turnovers? They seem to do all the right things yet still lost. I will throw out the Cincy game as just a bad situation, exacerbated by the Bearcats shooting way more free throws on BYU’s home floor. I wonder how often that happens in the Big 12? Kansas didn’t vs. UCF. Free throws, free throws, free throws… that is the difference between winning and losing.
True True but I want to get to the point of why Kansas lost that game with better athletes in all 5 positions: Kansas basketball’s Bill Self gets brutally honest after upset loss to UCF (msn.com)
“Well, it says a couple of things,” Self said. “It says that Johnny’s done a great job and give them credit, they were better than us tonight. There’s no understating that. They were better than us. On the flip side, we weren’t very good. I mean, we got to take care of the ball. And we did some things that I think good teams shouldn’t do, especially playing away from home in a hostile environment when you have control of the game. And then you do some very, very careless and loose things to allow them to get back into it. The game was lost, or the game was won, depending on which side you’re on, in the last four minutes of the first half and obviously, the first three minutes of the second half. The depth of the league is great. You know, you’re going into week two, and there are must-win games. Who would have ever thought that in an 18-game season you’d have must-win games going into week two. But that’s kind of how it feels right now, not only us but for others as well.”
Offensively, the Knights have struggled this year. The Knights turn the ball over a lot, don’t shoot threes well, don’t shoot twos well, and don’t shoot free throws well — not a great combo! The one thing they do consistently well is attack the offensive glass, for which they are 35% nationally in offensive rebounding percentage. The Knights also do a decent job getting to the free throw line. All their shooting and turnover percentages are sub 200 nationally.
How did UCF beat Kansas? They only 42% from the floor versus 51% from Kansas, but won the turnover battle 18-13 and shot 14-18 from the line versus 6-11 from the Jayhawks.
Read the last 3 paragraphs.
My three keys to a BYU win is
1 Khalifa takes Diallio outside for easy assists. Kansas is an inside-out built team. BYU is the polar opposite. Also neutralizes Diallo’s rim protecting skills.
2 Limit TOs, BYU has got to keep this game under 10 (Secret password: Maybe sit Hall out of this one)
3 Play a controlled game and DON"T have wasted possessions.
Notice, I have not talked much about Defense here. This is BYU’s game to win because BYU defends the 3 well and UCF’s inside game is not that big.
Yes, but the road in a strange gym has adverse effects on 3s
Going to disagree with high respect because you do have a big point on fouls and reffing…but TOs doomed BYU in both games. The Cinn game was particularly galling in that BYU was completely unprepared for Cinn’s inside game. Pope got a rude welcome to Big 12 Bball and was exposed to our lack of rim protecters and a punishing inside grind it out type of Bball. Foos was a non factor, Khalifa bad knees and Atiki just plain lost out there, weak 6’11 guard.
I keep pointing out that Baylor had only 5 TOs in the game to our 18. That was 22 points right there
I’m okay with it and I understand and will concede that what you are saying is accurate for the most part. I really need to emphasize however that time and again I see BYU TRYING to do the same things that their opponents do in an effort to get more calls and they just don’t. Khalifa’s dunk was a good example. Supposedly if you go up strong to the basket and draw contact you will get a call. It worked for UCF all night. So why didn’t Khalifa earn a free throw on his dunk when he was crashed into by the UCF guy? Hopper tried to tell me he fell over his own two feet, which is total nonsense. When BYU starts drawing fouls the same way their opponents do and actually gets a whistle for it then I will back off. I know we don’t do it nearly as much as our opponents do but when we do I want the same calls.
So, since we don’t do the driving hard to the rim nearly as much as other teams, we won’t get as many fouls and therefore shoot less free throws. And there is the free throw discrepancies.
ANOTHER UPSET