A Knack For the Dramatic

BYU pulled out a victory over another not great team last night.  They did so in interesting fashion.  The game was definitely chippy.  Even the fans seemed to be going after each other with their cheers and jeers.  There were a lot of fouls called, obviously a lot more on Portland (though, in the refs defense, Portland fouled BYU a lot more).  BYU shot more free throws for a road team than anyone else this season, by five.

But still, both teams could easily leave the game feeling like the refs tried to hose them.  Adjusting to the officiating of the WCC has definitely been challenging for Coach Rose and his staff.  I think that has been as big of an adjustment as anything: venues, opponents, coaching, etc.  The officiating is different.  BYU's youth (and tempers) don't handle it very well at times, particularly on the road.

The Gonzaga win was big for BYU.  It was the first time since Baylor, really, that BYU looked somewhat cohesive on both ends of the floor.  They played at a fast pace, but weren't frantic about it.  They played solid defense, particularly inside.  At Portland, they had a similar game, but at times, the guards went too fast/too frantic.  I wonder how this will play out in games at Gonzaga, but first at improved San Francisco.  They can't let the crowd or refs or both get to them like they have in two games against St. Mary's, or they will lose that game.

Obviously the three-point shooting has been a concern for BYU.  I think the biggest thing missing from BYU's three-point arsenal is the transition three.  Stephen Rogers' injury hurts that certainly.  But guys aren't even running to the corners in transition like they used to.  Most of the threes are coming from the half-court offense, which isn't really BYU's specialty.  The other issue I see with it, is guys are trying to shoot their way out of it by continuing to shoot threes in the half-court.  Zylstra, Cusick, and Carlino all started going to the hoop last night.  Finally.  Drive, get fouled, get free throws, get in a rhythm.  Let's see if this helps BYU going forward.  It certainly helped Cusick last night as he went 2-4 from three, which seems like the best individual performance from three BYU has seen in quite some time.

The other thing that might contribute to BYU's shooting woes of late was the trip to Greece in August.  It essentially extended the season about 2 months so guys are playing like it's late March instead of early February (none of the guys on this team have been playing in late March before!).  BYU took just a handful of guys on the trip, and they logged a lot of minutes.  It seemed like Harrison hit the freshman wall before most freshman do.  Zylstra's clearly not playing as well as the season goes along.  I think that may be impacting performance at this point in time.

BYU has a well-timed week off.  BYU needs to ramp up for a big end of February with road games at surging San Francisco, a Santa Clara team that played BYU reasonably tough in the Marriott Center, and at NCAA Tournament-bound Gonzaga.  Those three roadies are sandwiched by home games against the 7th and 8th place teams in the conference that BYU beat by double-digits on the road.  4-1 leaves them in decent position to make the field of 68, 3-2 and it's done, 5-0 and they're in, probably avoiding a play-in game as well.  5-0 and the Cougars would clinch a double-bye in the WCC Tourney.  4-1 and they get a single-bye.  3-2 and who cares...

I went through last night and identified 64 likely teams to make the field.  That leaves 4 spots for the Cougars to squeeze in.  If the season ended today, I think they would probably be in, but the margin for error is tiny.  At this point, they could overcome a loss to Gonzaga, but they'll probably need to advance to the WCC Final to feel comfortable if they do.