1) New Mexico absolutely saves everything they have for BYU. Every time. Like my friend Holly from New Mexico always says when talking about her "homeland": everyone in the state hates everything about BYU, 100% of the time, for all of their lives. They dropped 86 points on BYU in the previous meeting. Since then, their only game at 80 points was against TCU, the absolute worst team in the conference. They were consistently scoring in the 60's. Then they come back and drop 82 on the road in the Marriott Center.
They got a lot of open looks throughout the game, but they played and shot out of their minds. The epitome was with about 2 minutes left, shot clock at 1, man in his face, fade-away 3-pointer, just to prevent a shot clock violation: nothing but net for a 35% 3-point shooter. Phillip McDonald goes for 26, shooting 5-8 from 3. Kendall Williams drops 15, on 3-5 from 3. Two guys have career nights. Just like last time, just a different pair of guys. They seem to save it all up for BYU. Losing 4 of the last 5, averaging 66 points a game since playing BYU. And they drop 82 on the road on 47% shooting, 45% from 3. This is a 35% shooting team from 3 on the year and against BYU they are shooting 43%. They average 74 points/game. Against BYU, they average 84. The "BYU Factor" is alive and well for New Mexico. Honestly, it's like they've been taking it easy the past 3 weeks just saving everything for the game against BYU.
2) As the season has gone on, the officiating gets worse and worse in BYU games. Jimmer drives, gets fouled three times before throwing up a crazy shot that he misses. Play on. Jimmer drives, player concedes the layup and intentionally avoids contact. Jimmer gets the and-one. There were at least 30 plays where they missed fouls or called bad fouls. I don't think that is an exaggeration. I thought James Anderson was going to get ejected for a late, and obviously intentional, shove on Drew Gordon at the end of the game. I didn't just think he was going to, I thought he should have. Instead, it was out of bounds, off New Mexico, BYU ball. When you have Jackson Emery getting called for a foul 30 feet from the basket when New Mexico actually pushed their own guy, it's bad. When that isn't even in the top 5 of bad calls, that's atrocious. The refs should not get paid for their performance tonight. At least not from the NCAA...The same goes for everybody in a Cougar uniform. There wasn't a whole lot that any of them did to earn their scholarships tonight. BYU was not winning the game tonight, even if they got all of the calls that the refs totally blew.
3) BYU is not as mentally tough as I thought. They showed true grit and determination on Saturday. They pulled together when the going got tough in San Diego. They showed that they can handle a raucous crowd with incessantly vulgar taunts, they can deal with traps from athletic opponents, and they can handle anything inside that 94-foot rectangle. But they crumbled tonight. I thought the seniors would pull them together. I thought they had enough strengths that they could absorb the blow and still manage to put up points. But they shot themselves out of the game tonight. Just because there is no Brandon Davies to throw the ball into, doesn't mean that BYU can't score inside. But everybody was content to just jack it up from outside. Jimmer and Collinsworth were the only two players that actually tried to penetrate and score. Most of BYU's turnovers were guys literally letting the ball go through their hands: mental mistakes, and many of them. BYU got out-toughed, they got out-hustled, and they got out-shot. At home. With a conference championship on the line.
4) I will not miss the Mountain West one bit. New Mexico always reminds me of that, even when BYU beats them (which is truly rare these days). New Mexico has played 2 great games this season, both against BYU. But, Lobo fans, much like Utah football fans of the 90's, would gladly go 2-30, if they were 2-0 against BYU. Holly, would you agree with that assessment?
3 other points, now that I have calmed down a little bit.
ReplyDelete1) Starting Anderson was an absolute mistake. BYU was down 15-4 before he was finally taken out.
2) Having Jimmer guard Phillip McDonald in the man-to-man was also a big mistake. He used a lot of energy on the defensive side AND McDonald played his best offensive game of the season.
3) BYU has to change their rotation on the 2-3 zone. The ball-side forward crashes on the drive and New Mexico hits 6 threes from the corner. The zone has to make them work harder for the shot than that. This was the same issue last game. New Mexico continues to go to that well because BYU keeps responding the exact same way.
Dave Rose said it best before the game. We need time to adjust to Davies being gone but we have to play tonight. I hope this is a one game aberration for the team. They were a different team tonight than we have seen all year. It looked totally emotional.
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