What we learned from BYU BOOM this week

It will be the Lone Peak 3, Davis and one other. Count on it.

I hate to say it but Aytes and Shaw are going to be the odd men out.

LJ Rose would be my guess. He’s the only experienced one of the inexperienced ones. And he had reasonably good stats for a team slower than BYU’s. Although Bryant seems to be getting a lot of love from TJ and Emery as well.

Rose has a horrible problem this year…so much talent.

If all goes as planned, Rose will have a team that scores inside and out. That has not worked in the past and we have seen too many 3 and 4 guard teams out of Rose in the past. The WCC will do that to you and only Gonzaga has made other WCC teams play Few’s game.
If Rose has the temperament to stick with his bigs and not resort to small ball, then I think BYU can dominate the WCC and have some deep runs in the big Dance. If he bails at the first sight of a hot shooting SMC or any other guard dominated WCC team, then I think he is in trouble. There are 2 reasons for this…Recruiting, if Rose does not develop his bigs then that will be the end of any top 100 big man signing for BYU while Rose is in charge and secondly, while playing in the Rec League is cute and it makes us all warm and fuzzy to see a lot of small guards huck it up from deep, outside in the real world top 25 teams have a punishing inside game.

Few certainly has proved that with reasonably good guard play and reasonably good big play, a team can dominate the WCC. It hasn’t hurt that he usually loads up in the pre conference season on the best teams available. For some reason that has not been the case the last couple of years–or this year for that matter.

Rose never dominated the MWC the way Few has the WCC; but with the bigs flowing, assuming, as you stated, that he uses them, the future is much brighter than the Tyler Haws KC dominated lineups that couldn’t figure out how to be tough enough to win a rec league.

I met Elijah Bryant and got to talk to him for a couple minutes in the athletic offices when I was down for the Miss State game. The first thing I noticed was that he was bigger than I thought he would be. The guys in the program are raving about his and Childs’ athleticism. I also learned that Bryant is an LDS kid that BYU just didn’t recruit out of high school, but he really took off his freshman year at Elon and created a lot of interest in him (not just from BYU) as a transfer. He seemed to be a really nice, polite, attentive kid. I instantly became a fan. As I mentioned in another post, he had a huuuuuuge problem turning the ball over as a freshman, but if he can get that under control he seems to have tons of potential.

Bryant had some very minor knee surgery, and I think he’s out for a month or so.

Is there room for Cody Leifson on this year’s squad? He is not fast, lives by the 3 but sets good pics and would stretch the field for the bigs to do work

then there’s Steven beo. Unlike Leifson, Beo will shoot the ball from anywhere. He has a mean crossover and Jimmer range. The only thing keeping these two from minutes would be their defense.

Zac Frampton

Frampton is a solid all around player who would compliment any team. A very good rebounder for his 6’3 size and just knows where the basketball is. Can drive, defend and has a good outside shot.

Lastly LJ Rose.

Rose is a penetrator who will find the open man. Doesn’t matter if the open guy is outside for an open 3 or a OOP for the dunk. Rose can do it. He can score inside or out and is exactly the kind of guy that Coach Rose needs to wear down these guard driven WCC teams.

his usage was like top five in the nation that year, with his turnovers a bit lower on the pecking order so his efficiency wasn’t that bad…
he was also pretty high on assist rate and steals rate.
admittedly against low major competition but still better than high school competition.
I expect he’ll see the floor more than most of the other guards. Unlike most of them he’s had a year in the system. So once his injury recovery is complete he should be one of the top four guards.

You make very good points; thanks for the perspective. I may have been a bit hard on him, looking at raw stats and seeing a few 8 TO games and several with 5 or so. His overall game looked pretty darn impressive for a freshman with near NCAA leading usage %