People talk about trap games and how ASU was could of been one…nope, not when you hit the 1st 6 threes. Now WVU could be viewed as one. WVU is # 8 on defense. Yes, BYU went into Morgantown and got the win. Demin and Boskovic sealed the deal. Richie Saunders, one could say, had a poor game by his standards.
Keys to a win
BYU hits it’s outside shots, game over, if we struggle from 3, the game could be a tight one.
Javon Small is elite at the point, BYU has got to keep Mag on him like a pitbull.
WVU is not a great 3 point shooting team. they have had 1 game all year that looks like a BYU type win…Iona 15-31. that’s it. again, Small is the only threat out there from long distance. Lock him down, MAG@
WVU is offensively challenged, makes sense that they are good on D (ranked #8 nationally). We will see if they can slow down BYU at home.
Blow out alert.
Vegas has this as a 72-65 game.
I say BYU gets to 80-65
ASU was a trap game. Did you know we were going 6 for 6 from threes? No. And, 6-15 free throws says mentally it was one. Anyway, agree with you that WVU is a trap game. We have ISU on the following Tuesday. One game at a time.
Stewart can handle him too. And if needed, so can Saunders.
Knell has been improving on defense as well. He gets out of position some but has improved.
We just need to outscore other teams. Making free throws will help.
Haha, not really. He has been hitting his shots though and some at key times when BYU needed a score to stop opponents momentum. He has played like a senior should play. Now if he could just help some of those freshmen do the same… Demin, Catchings, etc. I’m talking about you.
Knell…has his defense improved? no but BYU has a lot of long talent to hide him in. Been saying it for years now. What has stopped the other team’s momentum…our big 3s, to which Knell has been a big part of. 3’s trump 2s so in that regard, Knell has been a big help to the team.
Despite some of West Virginia’s struggles, their defense has remained very good. No team in Big 12 play has scored more than 75 points on them, and they defend the three-point line very well. They have the #2 three-point defense in Big 12 play, allowing opponents to shoot 29.6% in conference play. BYU actually did a nice job in the first matchup from behind the arc, hitting 10-28 (36%) from three. Kanon Catchings, Dallin Hall, and Trey Stewart all made two threes off the bench.
Small is great, but West Virginia is one of the worst offensive teams in the Big 12. They shoot 30.6% from three in Big 12 play, which is #13 in the league, but shoot 44.6% of their field goal attempts from behind the arc, which is the third highest rate in the Big 12. I expect BYU to pack the paint and force the WVU’s less proficient players to shoot from behind the arc. West Virginia is also dead last in the Big 12 in offensive rebound percentage, grabbing just 23.4% of their misses. The one thing they do well is take care of the ball. They are #2 in Big 12 play in turnover percentage, turning over the ball on 15.5% of their possessions.
What I have noticed about Knell the past few games is that he has made some great passes and he has actually put the ball on the floor and made some plays. Not sure about his D, but he has been great on offense. I am bothered that a guy who has has such a great stroke shooting the ball is such a mediocre FT shooter.
It is puzzling for sure. I am not sure why free throw shooting, such an important part of the game, has become a lost or discarded art. Most certainly free throw percentage has gone down overall in the past decade or more. Can anyone check on that? I would love to be proven wrong but it seems like players just don’t put much attention to free throw shooting. It is strange because so many games are close and, at the end especially, free throw shooting can be the difference between winning and losing.
I watch the technique, the routine, etc. and so many players just look terrible. I am mostly speaking to BYU’s players. Such a good team should have good free throw shooting but it just doesn’t seem to be a priority. There should be coaches that work specifically on technique, routine, concentration, etc. until every player is close to 80%. No reason not to be.
I was bored:
Here is some information for you:
For the NBA, the league average free throw percentage has remained relatively stable, hovering around 77-78%. There have been minor variations from season to season, but no clear downward trend. What Is The NBA Free Throw Percentage Over The Last 10 Years | StatMuse
College - They say the basic same thing, the best team shoot FT’s consistently, but overall, the FT percentage does not show a decline.
Just an interesting note:
2024-2025 season BYU is 307th as a team (68%). I think includes all levels of teams.
2023-2024 Season BYU was 89th as a team (74.2%)
2022-2023 Season BYU was 150th as a team (72.5%)
Hal Lanier of the Philadelphia 76ers shot his free throws with a jump shot. Others granny style. Some from left or right on the free throw line. Whatever is muscle memory. We just aren’t working hard enough.
Elbow must stay in and not flare out. Result if it flips out is a miss right for right handed shooters. Unacceptable at this level.
Short and long is all muscle memory. Repetition of the full movement as one complete movement. Takes real time and effort.
All true hopper. It is something I did in high school. I practiced my free throw shooting because I wanted to be good at it. I learned a good technique and just did it over and over. As a result I was always close to 90% free throw shooting. Teammates marvelled at my shooting, haha. They wondered how I did it. My answer was always practice, practice, practice. It’s really not that hard.
I didn’t actually realize how good I was until I saw a bunch of newspaper articles my mom had cut out and saved. Yeah, it was small schools but I had decent game.
