Saturday, January 30, 2010 MWC Action

Cougar fans, fret not too much about the polls.  They picked a good week to lose (assuming that they win on Saturday against Utah).

In the AP poll they are 12th.  Numbers 14, 15, 16, and 19 all lost.  That will cushion their fall in the AP.

In the Coaches poll they are 10th.  Numbers 11, 14, 15, 16, and 19 lost.  Number 13 K-State plays Kansas this weekend, so they will either jump BYU or stay near BYU.

Wyoming over Air Force, 65-60.  Air Force stinks.  What happened there?  Their last MWC win was 2 years ago.  Wyoming's last road win was at Air Force a year ago.  Something has to give here.

In the battle for 4th place in the MWC, SDSU over CSU, 68-60.  Offensively, CSU is not capable of scoring enough points to beat SDSU.

What better way for New Mexico to come off a big win over BYU than to lose at TCU?  Sorry, not likely.  New Mexico 65, TCU 55.  Same with CSU, TCU is too impotent on offense to have a real chance to pull off the upset.

BYU will beat Utah, 81-65.  Boylen is not a good coach.  I've been saying it since he was hired.  Last year, Ute fans came to his defense as he led them to a 5 seed in (and early exit from) the NCAA tournament.  This year, no such defense for JB.  Talent-wise, these teams are fairly close to even, but coaching-wise you can't even make a list of the differences.  The real problem for Utah: their strength (shot-blocking from their 7'3" center) does not give them an advantage in this game.  BYU does not utilize the post very well, and when they do, it is with Brandon Davies, who will probably only play when Foster is not in the game anyway.  Utah turns it over too much and, against what will be a very classless and hostile crowd, it will prove too much to overcome.  This will probably be closer than it should be.  Utah is really just playing to screw up BYU's season (and perhaps to kick off a HUGE turnaround and save their ridiculously poor season) at this point and that makes them a dangerous rival.  Dangerous they are, but able to pull off this monumental upset they are not.  Carlon Brown will probably score 30 points though as he knives through BYU's zone "defense."  I hope they shelf that for this weekend, but they probably won't.  Coach Rose's biggest flaw this year by far...