Couple initial thoughts:
1) This was the first game of the season I was to see.
2) The last few years of BYU basketball have been hard for me to watch. I just couldn't get into the teams. Even when we won it was frustrating. While this team may not make meet or exceed expectations, I enjoyed watching them play and will be making a point to watch future games. I'm excited to see what they can do.
Observations:
1) As mentioned in other posts, there is a lot better team ball going on. The passing and ball movement was so refreshing to see. Not nearly as much selfishness as we've seen from teams in the last few years.
2) Still a lot of games left against better teams, but I like what I saw on defense. They play it. There's effort there. The Schroyer-effect is there. Hardnett played some lock-down defense on Illinois' best player. While Illinois certainly didn't shoot well in the 1st half, lets give our guys some credit on defense. I think we held Illinois to like 10 points within the first 15 min.
3) I think this is the deepest backcourt we've had in a while: Bryant, Hardnett, Haws, and Cannon. That's a legit squad at guard and I don't think we've ever had that deep of a bench of guard. This will bode well in the guard-heavy WCC. Hardnett has some legit handles and speed. I'd say the slowest out of those three is Haws.
4) While he's still developing, Childs is an upgrade over Mika. He's more explosive.
5) Bryant is a different player. Last year it seemed like every time he got the ball he tried to shoot it. I didn't see that tonight. He did a superb job feeding folks the ball. Nearly had a triple double.
6) Nixon, Worthington, Seljaas all held their own.
7) Weakness on this team will be our front court. Still, we have better options than the Chris Miles days.Statistics: Posted by Gunk — Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:06 am
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