Wow, this not a good showing. USC making them look like a high school team.
This is what happens when you lose ALL of your top talent at once…
Sometimes shots just don’t go. It’s not that USC’s defense is all that good. USC is shooting well right now. BYU is hitting more shots. There is a little bit of hero ball going on. Just keep playing team ball. And figure out how to start games a whole lot better.
I’m a little more concerned with how they just look overwhelmed. This is a young bunch. They will get more poise… down the road
One thing, Averett seems too small for the position, or for what he’s trying to do. He gets overwhelmed. Like his hustle…but
too bad we don’t have any more Haws brothers in the program. 
Averette 1-7
Barcello 3-11
Harding 0-6
You know when your leadership sneezes, the whole team catches the flu.
How they play the next game will tell us how the season will go. Young minds can be messed with so easily.
It’s clear, this is not last year’s team. Very hard to replace the likes of our big 3 last year. The question is, will this group jell in time to perform against the WCC? If not, we could looking at 3rd, 4th, or 5th.
Since I am working I didn’t watch it. I recorded it. Will erase the recording. I am surprised at how badly they were beaten. USC isn’t even a ranked team as far as I know. I am surprised at the poor shooting. Hopefully today was an anomaly or it could be a long season.
It’s one game. It’s tough the entire team can’t make a bucket. However, we started off not bad. We made shots early. Then a lid was put on the basket.
I’m still not sure why Johnson isn’t playing more.
Haarms did some good things but also some questionable things as well.
Lee looked good early on.
Barcello missed open shots.
The best player was George.
USC isn’t that good. We weren’t shooting well. That’s the number one problem. Some were aiming and not just shooting relaxed and they shot short shots. Others elbows were flinging out and the ball would go left and right. We did rush a lot of shorter shots including layups.
Other than that, I thought our defense was good and we ran our offense.
The real problem was that USC scored 30 points more than BYU did. It seems obvious that this team isn’t very good so it will be a big challenge for Pope to get them up to speed as the season moves forward.
It looks like Gonzaga is light years ahead of BYU this season and there are other teams in the WCC who will give the Cougars a run. I think USF beat Virginia a few days ago…
You say not very good. What does that mean? Did you watch the game? We had 30 open shots that we bricked. Unlike the last 3 games.
It means “NOT VERY GOOD”.
A good team doesn’t lose by 30 to an unranked team, they just don’t.
If USC isn’t that good and BYU lost to them by 30, what does that make BYU?
Sometimes they do… did you watch the game? We had plenty of wide open shots. Just like we did in the previous 3 games.
Have you been watching Kansas and Kentucky? Kentucky is 1 for 16 from 3 land. Kansas not much better. Early in the season, especially this season, teams aren’t in a rhythm yet. It’s not time to panic or make decisions on this team…
BYU has played 4 games. 3 wins vs. weak teams that probably won’t get much better. 1 loss, by a large margin, against a team that may get better but at this point isn’t even ranked. Had BYU lost by 10 or less then I wouldn’t be making a decision about this team. That didn’t happen.
My “decision” about this team is that they aren’t very good right now. Can they or will they get better? Yes, I believe they can and likely will but at this point in the season they aren’t a very good team.
If you disagree with that then fine. Once again, my opinion is justified with evidence. You can choose to agree with it or disagree with it. Read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote.
JCoug, I agree with your assessment that this BYU team is just not very good right now. Our guards are both seniors with strong resumes, and they were TOTALLY AND COMPLETLY dominated by the USC guards. Harding looked totally non competitive athletically, as did Harward. Lohner has a 40” vert but it’s hard to use that to score in the paint when he is standing 22 feet away bricking threes. Pope had no backup plan for the offense other than to have the guys just keep chucking up threes. This was a total disaster and exposed a LOT of flaws. I love Coach Pope and think he will be a star at BYU for many years but he better produce better than what I saw today. I’m ok with losses—they happen. But I am not ok with BYU basketball—my true love in sports—getting humiliated and boat raced like I saw today.
It wasn’t just the 3’s. They were missing midrange shots too. But, I have to go back and say the 3’s were open shots. So were many of the 2’s. 5 more of those 3’s go in and 5 more 2’s and this is a ballgame. USC didn’t exactly run away with the game. Tomorrow is St. John’s. See what happens.
The great Kentucky bricked 18 2’s in a row too. I think we will see this with the way things are with COVID19.
This horrific shooting was not my main point or my main concern. Seeing our players be uncompetitive and physically/athletically overwhelmed was concerning.
JCoug, you are arguing with a Narcist. Any argument you take, they will go the other way. It is far better to disregard the Hopper and move on. Of Course BYU is not very good right now. What was alarming to me about the loss was 2 guys, Barcello and Harding had horrible nights. They are our leadership and when they whiffed, it spread like wildfire. Harding is especially concerning to me.
When I said before the game was played, “If BYU can hit 3s, we should win”, means a lot of things that I will not go into, we all know a fair amount about basketball on this board. Larimer alluded to it by saying that you can’t use Lohner’s 40" leap when he’s bricking 3s. Hopper comes right back with:
Makes your head spin.
To get back to reality. Pope has a grease fire on his hands, we will see if he can put it out. He has all the pieces to be a great team so a loss like this should be a wake up call and not a transfer call.
Anyone can go back through the years and read my posts on Guard play. If you Don’t Drive to the hoop to create open looks, you just can’t compete against good teams. Pope was going to make Barcello the point (remember?) I thought it was a bad mistake because Barcello never drove last year, so he gets Averette. Problem solved? You be the judge. Harding looks to me that the leg never healed, there is no “POP” to his game.
You must have cataracts too. I’m getting mine out in a couple of hours. But even I can see that we had 40 wide open shots and most from the three point line. That wasn’t the problem. We were very tight in the releases. Aiming the ball and not shooting with confidence.
I’d like to see more two man games with Haarms as long as he kicks it back out as well as shoot every time.