BYU fans have a good deal to look forward to this week. BYU commences West Coast Conference basketball on Thursday night at 9pm Mountain, with an ESPN2 broadcast of their conference opener at St. Mary's. BYU football then follows that up Friday morning with, in my opinion, one of its best bowl matchups in recent years against an 8-4 Tulsa team, whose four losses all came to teams that were in the top ten at the time (and all finished the season in the top 20). Jake Heaps is officially gone, off to KU where he will sit for a year and learn Charlie Weis' system, and likely become the heir apparent to the starting job in 2013. Jimmer Fredette is currently playing his NBA regular season debut, as I type, he is 3-4 with 6 points and a turnover (now, later in the game, Jimmer came back down to earth with several turnovers, misses, etc. though he did manage to get a handful of assists).
BYU Hoops is starting to "get it" I think. They have a real good shot to reel off a lengthy winning streak over the next month. They have won their last two and have nine straight "should wins" ahead of them before traveling to Virginia Tech. I believe at St. Mary's is a game BYU can certainly win. There may actually be more issues at Loyola Marymount than at St. Mary's, as the hype of that game won't be as great but the atmosphere may be every bit as intense. I believe the WCC teams that BYU plays at home first (with the exception of Gonzaga) benefits them and they should take those on the road (really, I'm talking Santa Clara and San Francisco, which could have tripped BYU had the Cougars traveled to them before getting them at home).
The thing that I see with this team is that the offense, even when it isn't playing well, is putting up points still. I felt BYU really had a tough time getting in rhythm, other than two 3-4 minute stretches, against UC-Santa Barbara, but when the final buzzer went off, they found themselves with 89 points. The half-court offense was a bit choppy, but they got enough points in transition, enough offensive rebounds to make it work. BYU really has looked like an NCAA Tournament team the past two weeks. I know they lost to Baylor and allowed Buffalo and UCSB to hang somewhat close, but Baylor is going to probably win the Big XII, Buffalo is going to contend in the MAC, and if UCSB can find a way to outlast Long Beach State in the Big West, may very well be that 14/15 seed with a first round upset. No shame there.
What I like about BYU right now is the contributions from everywhere, though some of the freshmen have started to taper off a bit. I think it's almost a benefit for those guys to tweak an ankle, hurt an elbow, lose playing time to veterans at this point in the year. It helps them gear up for the long stretch run of conference play. Right now, Hartsock is on fire shooting the ball. Davies and Abouo have done a good job on the glass. Winder and Zylstra have each exploded and given opposing defenses something to think about. Rogers should return mid-January which will give BYU another scoring option and some addition length in their zone D. Right now, even guys who aren't contributing much scoring the ball can still eat up some minutes (Cusick, Harrison, and Sharpe) to give the starters a rest while grabbing rebounds, playing defense, and not chucking up crazy shots.
All in all, I like what I am seeing from this Cougar squad right now. I'd like to see Davies continue to be assertive offensively. He seems to be a guy who steps up in the big games, but isn't there in the others. Hartsock's hot shooting can't continue, so BYU will need Davies to step up. There isn't anyone else doing much on the inside. Abouo's inside scoring ability has lessened of late. I almost wonder if he is battling some nagging injury b/c he is not finishing as strong or playing nearly as aggressively offensively as he had been in the early part of the season.
Carlino really is Jimmer Jr. I do not mean to say he is doing what Jimmer did last year (it'll be a long time before someone captures the college basketball world like that), but you can see he has the potential to be like Jimmer in his ability to score and do some amazing things off the dribble. I am interested to see how this goes for him. I like BYU's direction right now. I think there is definitely reason for hope this season. I am glad BYUTV and ESPN is carrying so many games. This is an exciting offensive team!
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