I had the chance last year to meet some West Coast Conference fans in Denver who were here for the NCAA Tournament. They said two things to me: welcome to the WCC and enjoy the home-cooking. St. Mary's had some home-cooking in both senses of the word tonight. The game was close, St. Mary's gets three or four very beneficial calls in a row. St. Mary's takes advantage by hitting big baskets. BYU loses its cool, makes some mistakes to compound the bad officiating, and St. Mary's makes some more baskets. The lead got up to 20 before St. Mary's cooled off a bit and the refs started making horrible calls THE OTHER WAY. BYU cuts it to 10, the refs jump back on the Gaels bandwagon, and the lead balloons to 19 again as St. Mary's shoots lights out.
To highlight the shooting ability of St. Mary's tonight, here are some examples. Rob Jones is a 57% foul shooter: he goes 10 for 10 from the line. Stephen Holt is 19% from 3 on the season: 4-6 on threes, scoring 21 total points, 13 more than his season average. St. Mary's, on the season, shoots 47% from the field, 71% from the foul line, and 34% from three. Tonight they go 54%, 80%, and 48%, respectively. They got a lot of easy looks, but they hit a lot of shots with a hand in their face.
BYU's 2-3 zone will not work against St. Mary's. BYU probably can't play them man-to-man either. BYU played very frantic early on both on O and D. They let the crowd get to them. They let the poor officiating get to them (but did take advantage of a 5-minute stretch when the refs aided them). Too many mistakes. Too many defensive lapses. Too much shooting by St. Mary's. If BYU gets the same calls at home that St. Mary's did, gets the same hot shooting at home, and St. Mary's has an "average" night, BYU should have no problem dispatching them in the Marriott Center.
If the home-cooking is the same across the conference, BYU may struggle to win any road game. St. Mary's hit everything. It also helped that Abouo wasn't on the floor b/c of fouls, and Harrison WAS on the floor (he was a complete disaster in his few minutes on the court). Carlino looked like it was his first road game the first 25 minutes. There is reason for hope for a run by BYU still, except that this "lights out" shooting against BYU is becoming a prevalent theme. It wasn't ALL wide open shots, there were a lot of contested shots made and shots hit even when BYU plays good D. But, at some point, it has to become about BYU's D...
In the end, the foul count evened out somewhat (thanks to some generous "make-up" calls in the second half when St. Mary's was up 20), but BYU played most of the game with foul trouble and lost their aggressiveness on defense because of it. Credit St. Mary's for taking advantage of every Cougar and referee mistake. BYU made plenty of their own mistakes. The refs didn't decide the outcome of the game, but they did call the game into a blowout. It was a 2-point game in the first half when the calls starting going to the home team. BYU had a chance to cut it to single digits in the second half until the refs had two successive bad calls against BYU that led to a 6-0 spurt by St. Mary's because the Gaels were nails shooting the rock.
Welcome to the WCC and enjoy the home-cooking.
Yep - refs killed BYU momentum a few times.
ReplyDeleteI agree about BYU's defense. At some point, they've got to examine the 3-point defense. It's unlikely to be a coincidence that teams always have some second-tier guy go off from 3-point land against us.