SMC today

[BroncoBot]

BYU needed a perfect game, didn't get it.

Far from it.
They even did well to get a lot of TOs from SMC. But they were a little slow rotating, missed the open guy too often. Same old stuff that never seems to get fixed.

SMC is a well oiled executing machine. Their offense looks like they could run it in their sleep. They do nothing extremely well talent wise or individually. BUt as a team they are very very good.

BYU still looks like a church ball team when they have to face a good offense or defense. You can't tell me this TEAM is worse talent wise than some of the BYU MWC teams. And you can't tell me that the WCC is better than some of the MWC years where BYU was finishing near the top year after year. I don't understand the disconnect. And don't bawl to me about the refs.

The thing I do NOT like is how the refs turn the WCC into a finesse league. Too many whistles, too many fouls called. This isn't europe, even if there are 20 Australians on SMC's roster. This doesn't help anyone when the tournament comes around and suddenly teams can't rely on their best player to get calls all game.

[Gunk]

I hate SMC.

[frdbtr]

Positives. Childs is a sophomore, Landale is a SR and IMO they are really close. Childs was sick all day and still played him pretty well. BYU has no SR's on this team and it appears they keep improving. I expect if this team is allowed to gel for another couple of years, we might get the WCC championship we have been wanting. It doesn't look like there is going to be major attrition over the next couple of years.

[snoscythe]

The last four minutes of last night's game played out just like the overtime and Provo did a month ago. BYU was in the game, but suddenly on offense became obsessed with the idea of fouling Landell out, but when they didn't get the calls they panicked and started heaving hero threes. Then on defense, the double team rotation slowed down and they got a lot of open threes at the end.

[BroncoBot]

Positives. Childs is a sophomore, Landale is a SR and IMO they are really close. Childs was sick all day and still played him pretty well. BYU has no SR's on this team and it appears they keep improving. I expect if this team is allowed to gel for another couple of years, we might get the WCC championship we have been wanting. It doesn't look like there is going to be major attrition over the next couple of years.

I personally thought that Landale lit Yeoli up all night. Maybe part of that was Childs being sick all day, probably more that Landale is just a beast and a matchup nightmare for BYU.

I though Nixon actually played the best defense on Landale.

[BroncoBot]

The last four minutes of last night's game played out just like the overtime and Provo did a month ago. BYU was in the game, but suddenly on offense became obsessed with the idea of fouling Landell out, but when they didn't get the calls they panicked and started heaving hero threes. Then on defense, the double team rotation slowed down and they got a lot of open threes at the end.

The two losses to SMC are the 2 times BYU has lost their cool this season. (that I've noticed).

[hawkwing]

I hate when HAwk is right.

Hey, c'mon! Don't hate...

[hawkwing]

BYU loses by 12.

I hate to be this good.

[BlueK]

Positives. Childs is a sophomore, Landale is a SR and IMO they are really close. Childs was sick all day and still played him pretty well. BYU has no SR's on this team and it appears they keep improving. I expect if this team is allowed to gel for another couple of years, we might get the WCC championship we have been wanting. It doesn't look like there is going to be major attrition over the next couple of years.

Agreed. We start four sophomores. For once I would love to see us have a team without 80% turnover from the previous year, which is more or less the way it's been every year for the last four or five years. If the core holds together for next year we will be good.

St. Mary's has four seniors: Landale, Naar, Hermanson and Neal.

I know it's frustrating, but this team this year is far from terrible or the "dumpster fire" a lot of us here were predicting. And SMC is really good. We're close. And we still have a couple of shots at Gonzaga and then against both in the conference tournament.

[BoiseBYU]

I’m the eternal optimist, but if we see St Mary’s again in the tournament, I say it is tough for them to win on a neutral court and for a third straight time. I think a combo of Nixon and Worthington on Landale can somewhat better mute him. I think Hardnet can do a better job on Naar. And I think Seljas and Elijah’s shots will more likely fall than did last night. If I were SM, I’d not want to,play us again.