BYU basketball season in review and preview

This was definitely a landmark season for BYU basketball.  Most wins in school history.  Ranked for 12 straight weeks, including in the final poll of the season.  NCAA Tournament win for the first time in 17 years.  Had an All-American for the first time in 22 years, not counting Lee Cummard's 4th team Foxsports.com All America Team last year (I'm not counting it as pretty much nobody else is).

They accomplished a lot: more than any other BYU team in the last 25 years.  There are only 2 or 3 BYU teams ever to have the kind of success BYU did this year.  But they still left a lot on the table.  They lost at home.  Didn't win the conference title.  Lost to UNLV in the MWC Tournament again.  Missed a chance to play in the Sweet 16 in Salt Lake City.

They got a great start out of Tyler Haws, a great finish out of Michael Loyd, and several memorable performances throughout by Jimmer Fredette.  There were some very bright spots.  There were some pretty low points.  There were some incredible victories.  There were some bitter losses.  They found a way to win in the NCAA tournament, in double OT.  They found a way to let a SINGLE player eliminate them from the NCAA tournament.  Again.

So here's what they lose:
Chris Miles: solid, big-bodied defensive center.  Didn't score much.  Not a particularly great rebounder.  But he got his hands on a lot of balls and the guy he was boxing out never got the rebound.  His size was a great asset to the team.  Offensively, his 4.5 points per game won't really be missed.  By the end of the season, he wasn't getting but 10-15 minutes a game anyways.
Jonathan Tavernari: the occasionally hot, but sometimes very not, PF.  He combined his thick body with quickness and was a great post defender.  He was versatile enough to play the 3 on rare occasions.  He could keep you in a game with his shooting, or he could put you out of reach with his poor shot selection.  I think his senior year was a bit of a waste.  He was a mental case a lot of the time and didn't have his head in the game.  The one thing he always did really well was eat up minutes.  That will be missed because there isn't another 3/4 combo that can do that.
Lamont Morgan Jr: team captain and back-up to Jimmer at PG.  He was injured the last 10 games of the season, so, in a way, BYU has already moved on from him.
Tyler Haws: slashing SG/SF with a mid-range game and money from the charity stripe.  His shot was crucial to the early 14-1 non-conference stretch.  However, he hit a wall with his shot about mid-January.  He found ways to score driving to the hoop and at the free throw line but he was 0 for February outside of 8-10 feet.  He missed a few games with injury and had some foul trouble throughout the season.  BYU should be able to absorb his absence for his mission fairly well.

Who is coming in:
Kyle Collinsworth: Utah's Mr. Everything.  He was everything this year in Utah High School hoops that Tyler Haws was last year, but with a little more size and length.  He's 6'6", 200 lbs.  Supposedly his outside shot is a little better as well.  He may not start as Haws did as a freshman, but that would only be because Charles Abouo has improved and will get the starting nod.
Anson Winder: PG out of Las Vegas.  He is supposedly really quick.  He isn't the most highly rated player and he's unlikely to see much time with Jimmer and Michael Loyd sitting ahead of him in the depth chart.  I would be shocked if he played more than James Anderson does next year.
Chris Collinsworth: former Mr. Everything in Utah.  Played PF as a freshman before his mission.  He was stabbed while in Australia, but has fully recovered.  His conditioning will be a big question mark, though.  His jump shot was not even a question mark (more like an emphatic no with 3 !!! after it) before and I don't anticipate that it improved after two years Down Under.  He is, however, a solid rebounder and potential shot-blocker.  He showed flashes of brilliance as a freshman, but also showed flashes of coordination issues.  He should have grown into his body a bit.  Again, his conditioning will be crucial.  With James Anderson as the backup center, Collinsworth will need to provide solid minutes so Noah Hartsock can 1) get a breather and 2) play center some so Coach Rose can keep James Anderson on the bench where he belongs.  With his size, he might be able to play a little C as well.
Nick Martineau: PG, played some as a freshman prior to his mission.  Bad place to be on the depth chart for next year's team.  My guess is that he'll redshirt next year.

Concern for next year's squad:
Depth in the post.  Tavernari, for all the negatives he brought with him on the court, will be sorely missed.  His 24 minutes a game allowed Noah Hartsock to sit on the bench and play some C (roughly 8-9 minutes per game) when Miles and Davies got in foul trouble or couldn't match up with the opposing big man (which seemed like most games).  They add Collinsworth, which should help that somewhat.  But they are losing 40 minutes of C/PF play in Miles and Tavernari.  Davies can play another 5-10 minutes a game and Anderson improved enough to where he could play 8-10 minutes a game without putting the game in jeopardy.  When Davies is in foul trouble is where the issue is HUGE.

How to fix it:
Davies puts on 10 pounds.  Collinsworth gets in really good shape, really fast, and maintains it the entire year.  Also, they have one scholarship available, if they can get a Division I-ready Junior College PF/C who isn't already committed elsewhere.  Anyone want to guess how many of those are just sitting around waiting for BYU to offer them a scholarship?

What the team looks like:
The top 7 or 8 on next year's team could be much more talented than this year's top 7 or 8 (it's after that where the problems lie).  The starting 5 should be better.  Consider:

Jimmer without mono, strep, gonorrhea, or whatever other ailments he had last year, with Michael Loyd backing him up.  Better at the PG spot.
Jackson Emery with the confidence to hit a fadeaway 3 with 1 minute left in the NCAA Tournament, and always a 1st-team MWC defender.  As good, or hopefully improved, at the 2 spot.
Abouo with another year of experience under his belt and Collinsworth bringing his length and basketball IQ to the 3 spot.  That two-headed monster should be as good or better than the combo of shorter/smaller Haws and less-experienced Abouo.
Hartsock another year older, more confident in his offensive abilities, and more adept at playing other post players, with Collinsworth, a much bigger defender than JT was, backing him up.  Improved at the PF spot down low, but with zero threat of outside shooting.
Davies should be much more consistent as a sophomore offensively.  He has a knack for getting in foul trouble, though, but with 10 pounds and a lecture on not flopping on D, he should be better there.  He could become a shot blocker if he worked at it, he's so long.  Either way, offensively and athletically, vast improvement at C.

I don't anticipate Zylstra, Magnusson, or Anderson to play particularly large roles on the team next year, though Magnusson could certainly play a few quality minutes a game and Anderson can buy you a possession or two without screwing up (provided the opposing team isn't paying attention that he entered the game for that period of time).

Reason they will win the MWC: home court advantage.

Reason they won't win the MWC: road woes, particularly New Mexico and UNLV.  The inability to handle 40 minutes of full-court pressure.  Also, I believe UNLV and SDSU will be improved and New Mexico will be nearly as good.  Really, everybody in the conference should be better next year, excluding Utah and TCU who lose a lot of players (in Utah's case, literally half of the team has graduated or transferred).

Actual outlook: if the Collinsworth brothers contribute next year and if Davies and Hartsock up their combined scoring to about 20 points/game (right about 12 PPG this season), there is no reason they won't win or finish second in the MWC.  However, things could easily not come together and they could finish as low as 4th.  I think with the leadership of Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery, it would be hard to imagine a scenario where they don't finish 2nd or higher.

SDSU and UNLV always lose a game or two they shouldn't, you can bank on that every year (this year: at Wyoming for SDSU and two losses to Utah for UNLV).  New Mexico, who won the conference by one game (a 2-point win at BYU when Jimmer didn't play much because of illness), caught a lot of breaks this year that they might not get next year, especially having to face an improved MWC without Ramon Martinez.  No matter how the rest of it plays out, I think BYU could contend for a conference championship.  They are certainly not the frontrunner, and definitely shouldn't be.  But any of the top 4 could make a push for the title, so why couldn't BYU come out on top?  I think they likely end up 2nd, probably behind SDSU, but that's just me, a long time ahead of the season without knowing how the schedules look or what injuries might occur or which freshmen will make immediate impacts.