I think BYU fans got a glimpse of what their team can be like during NCAA Tournament play against San Diego on Friday night. And it wasn't always pretty. Carlino couldn't handle the continued high pressure defense applied by San Diego. Davies couldn't buy a free throw down the stretch. The bench (not counting Noah Hartsock who came off the bench due to his injury), in spite of massive foul trouble from three starters, didn't give BYU anything. Those are recipes for disaster. However, BYU avoided that disaster against what should have been an out-manned San Diego team. Sometimes, that's really what it's all about in conference tournaments: survive and advance.
In Carlino's defense, even the great Jimmer Fredette took 2.5 seasons to really adjust to constant, and extremely high, pressure defenses. It's the reason BYU hadn't gone to the Sweet Sixteen in 30 years: they've never had guards that could handle that. Guys have bad games at the free throw line and Davies is a much improved Free Throw shooter this season but he's still not great, so it isn't that surprising that he has a poor night from the line in a tight game against a desperate opponent. I think he felt he should have shot more free throws throughout the course of the game, which may have added to his frustration and lack of success. The bench has been a reasonably weak spot since Rogers went down. Cusick logged a lot of minutes tonight, without really impacting the game positively. Nate Austin gave a few quality minutes, grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back in, and had several assists, but had no impact on the defensive side of the ball, which is why he only played a dozen or so minutes. The bench logged a few minutes from other players, but those were extremely brief cameos by Stephen Rogers and Josh Sharp.
Again, they survived their first taste of tournament play, and maybe that will help them Saturday against Gonzaga...having a game under their belts seemed to help San Francisco today (which upset Loyola Marymount) and also San Diego which kept pace with BYU for all 40 minutes.
Hartsock was extremely efficient, grabbing 5 rebounds, getting two huge blocks in the second half with Davies sitting out in foul trouble, going 8-13 from the field, and hitting two game-clinching free throws with 6 seconds left. Zylstra came out on fire, and faded in the second half, much like we saw from Jackson Emery in tournament play last season. Davies was a man on the offensive end but didn't play well on defense the entire night. I think the post defense will be a critical component against Gonzaga on Saturday. The somewhat shoddy officiating on Friday may actually help BYU on Saturday: Carlino, Davies, and Abouo missed significant minutes because of foul trouble, so they may not be as tired. Perhaps BYU will find similar magic on Friday as the other (supposed-to-be more tired) teams on Friday: hardened by having already played an elimination game. They will need some magic, because a repeat performance of Friday night will send them home Saturday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment