BYU vs Buffalo

BYU started slow but Winder's 3pt shooting and Zylstra scoring kept us in the game until the rest of the team showed up.



Abouo struggled in the 1st half but finally found his game in the last second half.



Davies and Hartsock were in foul trouble in the first half but our bench made it happen.



Carlino struggled to score this game but hit the boards and dished out a bunch of assists. Carlino is really talented point guard how needs more seasoning.



Austin hurt his elbow at the end of the game on awkward fall.



Harrison didn't play with a sprained ankle.

Carlino played better in some ways, not scoring, but is still erratic at times. cusick still runs this offense better. Would love to see the +\- for this game on both.



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Considering BYU won by 20, I'm guessing everyone on BYU +/- is well on the + side.



This is a good game for Carlino. It'll let him know that it doesn't come easy at this level. Teams now have film on him and will begin to guard him more effectively. He'll need to adjust to - which I think he started doing in the 2nd half.



Would have liked to have seen Zylstra look for his shot against Baylor, like he did today. But it's a good sign going forward.



Winder was key to BYU getting back in this game. I think he's shown that he can provide valuable depth at both the 1 and 2 for the next three and a half years.

Here's the +/- for the game:



http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/2011/12/20/buffalo-78-brigham-young-93/plus_minus" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This game really shows BYU's depth. I often thought for many years that any JV team we put together could have placed no lower than third or fourth in the old MWC. That seems to be still true and it's hard not to really enjoy when someone comes up with a big game when they are thrust into the sitation due to injuries. I can't imagine what kind of team we'll be if we ever get everyone back healthy again.

Zylstra shows up every other game. Go back and look. He'll have a bad night and be a borderline liability out on the court. Next night he'll drop a bunch of points, usually against weaker competition that is stacking the middle to try and contain our bigs.



Abouo was a mess out there.



Carlino played a good game overall with 10 pts., 11 assists, 7 boards and 4 turnovers. He pushes the ball quicker up the court which is BYU's game. 35+ points were a direct result of his play last night. I honestly don't get the preference for Cusick.



Cusick as backup allows Winder to play the 2. Winder as we saw last night is a much better 2 than he is a PG. With Rogers out, Winder and Harrison can play the 2 and Abouo and Zylstra can play the 3.



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Gunk wrote:
I honestly don't get the preference for Cusick.

I don't think anyone has a flat-out preference for Cusick. The most anyone has said in Cusick's favor is that we should have waited until after the Baylor game to bring in Carlino because BYU acclimating to Carlino was part of what cost us our most important non-conference game of the season, and that Carlino should have been incorporated into the lineup against the likes of Buffalo and UCSB instead.

dmcougar wrote:
Carlino played better in some ways, not scoring, but is still erratic at times. cusick still runs this offense better. Would love to see the +\- for this game on both.



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Carlino - 8

Cusick - 4

snoscythe wrote:

I honestly don't get the preference for Cusick.

I don't think anyone has a flat-out preference for Cusick. The most anyone has said in Cusick's favor is that we should have waited until after the Baylor game to bring in Carlino because BYU acclimating to Carlino was part of what cost us our most important non-conference game of the season, and that Carlino should have been incorporated into the lineup against the likes of Buffalo and UCSB instead.

Actually, dmcougar said "cusick still runs the offense better" just a few posts ago. I just don't see any reliable evidence to support that or the claim that we would have done better against Baylor had we held Carlino out.



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Carlino makes more mistakes but he also does more. Cusick makes few mistakes because he takes few risks. Which is the way that Cusick should play-he plays within himself.



Carlino can do a lot more than Cusick and in time he will gain enough experience to cut down his turnovers.

Carlino does make a lot of mistakes but once he settles in we can all see he is going to be deadly and he really opens up shots for other guys. I like that he is a competitor and he is willing to do whatever when he shot isn't falling. I do think he could really improve shot selection. The turnovers I can live with in an uptempo type offense like BYU as the Pg it's going to happen



Disagree about Zylstra showing up every other game. The effort is always there he just knows his role. He is the fourth/fifth scoring option so when the other options are struggling/foul trouble/hurt he takes on more of the scoring load. We are lucky we have guys like Zylstra and Winder who are not our primary scoring threats and can still score over 20. If you would have told me either one of those guys would have scored 20 this year(Zylstra has done it twice) I don't care who it was against I would have called you fit for a straight jacket.



Noah is just a beast. I think some of Brandon's inconsistency is linked to Noah being so good. It is hard to get two low post guys a lot of touches

wildman wrote:
Carlino does make a lot of mistakes but once he settles in we can all see he is going to be deadly and he really opens up shots for other guys. I like that he is a competitor and he is willing to do whatever when he shot isn't falling. I do think he could really improve shot selection. The turnovers I can live with in an uptempo type offense like BYU as the Pg it's going to happen



Disagree about Zylstra showing up every other game. The effort is always there he just knows his role. He is the fourth/fifth scoring option so when the other options are struggling/foul trouble/hurt he takes on more of the scoring load. We are lucky we have guys like Zylstra and Winder who are not our primary scoring threats and can still score over 20. If you would have told me either one of those guys would have scored 20 this year(Zylstra has done it twice) I don't care who it was against I would have called you fit for a straight jacket.



Noah is just a beast. I think some of Brandon's inconsistency is linked to Noah being so good. It is hard to get two low post guys a lot of touches

Last seven games for Zylstra:



Wisconsin - 2/7; 4 pts

NAU - 8/10; 23 pts

Oregon - 2/6; 7 pts

Weber - 6/11; 15 pts

Utah - 2/6; 6 pts

Baylor - 1/4; 4 pts

Buffalo - 9/16; 26 pts



Either Zylstra's pattern as of late is either every other game like I mentioned or he just struggles against more athletic teams. I would say it was more athletic teams, but Zylstra under performed against Utah...leading me to believe it's more of an every other game for him right now.



Totally agree, BYU has scorers at every position. That's part of the reason why Carlino at PG is critical. With Cusick or Winder at PG defenses could forget about guarding the PG and either double us inside all they wanted or provide more help on the wings.



Cusick only has one game all season where he's scored in double digits (Utah with 10 pts). Cusick has gone scoreless in 4 games and under 5 pts in 11 games.



Winder has scored in double digits in 3 games, gone scoreless in 3, and under 5 in 6.

A day late, but looks like BYUtv was a hit in Buffalo as well:

http://ubfan.com/board/index.php?topic=12814.0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

a lot of props to the announcers who called a very fair and classy game.

Before I make any comments about the game, but say the quality of the picture from BYU TV was fantastic. I hooked my computer to my TV and watched the game in HD. I will also add that the BYU announcers were very good and in fact called the game better than the refs.

Gunk wrote:



Last seven games for Zylstra:



Wisconsin - 2/7; 4 pts

NAU - 8/10; 23 pts

Oregon - 2/6; 7 pts

Weber - 6/11; 15 pts

Utah - 2/6; 6 pts

Baylor - 1/4; 4 pts

Buffalo - 9/16; 26 pts



Either Zylstra's pattern as of late is either every other game like I mentioned or he just struggles against more athletic teams. I would say it was more athletic teams, but Zylstra under performed against Utah...leading me to believe it's more of an every other game for him right now.

I was actually going to look into this and it appears to be as I would have thought. Just wondering why Zylstra disappears against good competition?? I would have liked have seen Winder get some of his minutes during the Baylor game. Also, when we play tough teams in the future and Zylstra crawls into a hole again I hope Rose realizes it and lets Winder at least play defense. He may almost be as good of a defender as Charles. Nice to see Winder finally break out of his slump and prove his worth at the 2.

SpiffCoug wrote:
A day late, but looks like BYUtv was a hit in Buffalo as well:

http://ubfan.com/board/index.php?topic=12814.0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

a lot of props to the announcers who called a very fair and classy game.

Before I make any comments about the game, but say the quality of the picture from BYU TV was fantastic. I hooked my computer to my TV and watched the game in HD. I will also add that the BYU announcers were very good and in fact called the game better than the refs.

I read through a lot of the posts on that site, and it looked like the Baylor fans were very impressed. There was a lot of sentiment that they would still like to see BYU in the Big 12.