UNLV-BYU Recap (78-64), 2/5/2011

Other Scoring Options Stepping Up
UNLV made sure that Jimmer would have to work hard for everything, and he did, except that they sent him to the free throw line 16 times.  But it was clear that somebody else was going to have to come up big and make shots.  The question was: who would it be, if anyone?  Answer: Stephen Rogers, Charles Abouo, and Jackson Emery.  Jimmer's 10th point was BYU's 35th, much different than the SDSU game where Jimmer had 20 of the first 30.  Jackson struggled with his shot early but made plenty of contributions defensively before heating up in the second half and finishing with 15 points.  Rogers scored 12 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, and netted 2 assists off the bench in 21 minutes, including making two big threes and the assist that led to a monstrous dunk from Davies that put BYU up 11 with 10 minutes left.  Abouo also came in and made some solid plays, on both sides of the court, scoring 10 points in 24 minutes.  Those are the kinds of contributions BYU is going to need from these guys next season, so there is some hope for 2011-2012 after all.  Those guys' performances set the stage for Jimmer to deliver the knockout punch, scoring 10 points in the final 7 minutes on his way to becoming the all-time MWC scoring leader.

"He Don't Want No Assists"
Tre'Von Willis should talk more smack about Jimmer.  Before the first game, he said Jimmer was "supposedly" the best player in the MWC and would have to prove he deserved all of those accolades.  He dropped 39 in a double-digit road win for BYU.  Prior to this game, Tre'Von Willis had some words for Jimmer again: you're a ballhog!  [I'm paraphrasing...]  Cue Jimmer with 7 assists, which could have been 10+ if guys were making shots early in the game.  Jimmer took his 5th shot of the game with under 4 minutes left in the first half.  For a guy who wants to "shoot the ball every time" he sure didn't seem to shoot much.

Defense Wins Championships
It seemed like UNLV made every single shot where they had any kind of space.  They also got a lot of easy buckets on put-backs.  Which is made makes the fact that UNLV was held to 30% shooting for the game even more impressive.  That means a hefty majority of shots were tightly contested.  When a team takes a lot of contested shots, the opportunities for offensive rebounds are greater, so UNLV got 11 in the first half.  However, BYU was able to still contest shots and rebound remarkably better in the second half, allowing only 5 offensive boards.

The offense will get the headlines, particularly the bench contributions, and rightfully so, but the defense also won this game.  UNLV went over 5 minutes without a basket in the first half, which allowed BYU to turn a 1-point deficit into a 10-point lead.  Another 4-minute drought saw a 3-point lead become 10.  The rest of the game was essentially played even, with both teams trading shots and the lead swinging from 9 to 16 in the second half.

It also didn't hurt that BYU benefited from some home-cooking on the calls, particularly in the first half.  But I've seen enough BYU-UNLV games to feel that BYU finally deserved some favorable calls.

The Bracket Implications
Beating UNLV by 14 today should help BYU in a number of ways.  1) It gives BYU another top 50 win, taking their current total seven (7-1 against the top 50).  2) BYU should move up to 2nd in the RPI tomorrow, with SDSU having only a slight lead and playing a much lesser opponent at home today in TCU.  That assumes that Ohio State does not jump both of them, playing at Minnesota.  3) It should help them move up in the rankings on Monday morning to as high as #7.  All of these things help BYU's tournament resume.  Add in the fact that Jimmer gets more notoriety for becoming the all-time MWC scoring leader (the guy just can't stay out of the headlines, even when he scores a pedestrian 29), and BYU is looking to head into the NCAA Tournament with the best resume they have ever had.  The NCAA Tournament needs Jimmer.  The longer he stays around, the more intriguing the headlines become.  That means that BYU may actually get some favorable treatment in the brackets.  Perhaps a 2 or 3-seed, perhaps a trip to Denver the first weekend, perhaps staying in the West Regional, perhaps a favorable draw of opponents.  Who knows?  Beating UNLV today couldn't hurt the chances for any of those to happen.