Why I'm Concerned About St Mary's

Well, there's all those people praying to her... but I digress.



After last night's game (and without the benefit of hard stats), here are my biggest observed concerns:



1) The perimeter game sometimes struggles and the offense doesn't quickly start pounding it inside to re-establish position, also, the bigs don't always rebound aggressively after shoots from the arc.



2) Losing Rogers has put more offensive pressure on Winder and Harrison, neither of whom has consistently risen to the challenge. Abouo seems to play better in the second half than the first.



3) One of the Marriott Center home court benefits is the thin air in the second half. Yeah, there's more air total on the road, but see #1 and #2.



4) Carlino's handle is still a little loosey goosey for my comfort level (though I think he's the best option to run the point).



5) Big Stage/Small Stage - does the team get up for the ESPN game, or do they get tight because of it? Do they go into a smaller gym and rock it, or get underwhelmed by the venue? (I realize this is a toss-up rather than a concern, but as an unknown, it concerns me).

Why I'm concerned:



1. BYU is a very young team and still going through a lot of growing pains.



2. Noah Hartsock is not getting the ball enough. When this BYU team decides to play inside out, they will be much better in their half court offense.

HoosierCougar wrote:
1) The perimeter game sometimes struggles and the offense doesn't quickly start pounding it inside to re-establish position, also, the bigs don't always rebound aggressively after shoots from the arc.

Steve Cleveland sure beat that subject to death of BYU needing to pound it inside last night to Hartsock and Davies. He couldn't get over how we kept attempting to pop the 3-pointer from the perimeter, kind of like we didn't take the game serious enough.



I liked Rose's mention that the game was scheduled when it was for the benefit of giving Carlino more time before conference play to play with the team. Much more than that, I'm going to just give it a pass.

declocoug wrote:
Why I'm concerned:



1. BYU is a very young team and still going through a lot of growing pains.



2. Noah Hartsock is not getting the ball enough. When this BYU team decides to play inside out, they will be much better in their half court offense.

Excellent point. I do not understand why Noah isn't our number one guy we look for on offense on every half court set. He should be.

Our younger players seem to play a bit "selfish" at times. Can understand it. Each wants to contribute and make their mark.



Noah should get the bulk of the touches down low. I liked Davies getting the ball in the post and Noah cutting to rim for the dish from Davies last night. More of that would be awesome. Between Davies, Noah and Abouo, there shouldn't be a team in the WCC that can compete with those three.



What our guards don't seem to realize is they get their points and touches as a result of the post play. Post gets hot, defenses collapse opening up the perimeter. Our guards got a bit selfish last night, either that or they forgot the game plan.



Glad we played crappy last night and our guards struggled, means they'll come in more level headed tomorrow.



I am worried about St. Mary's applying pressure on our young guards. They're our Achilles heel, while St. Mary's guards are their strength.

Great points.

Last night I could have sworn that right before the run, BYU coaches huddled on a time-out and Coach Pope was the most vocal and Rose shook his head in agreement and then the ball started going into the paint and Carlino started going off on D and O and the overall D was better. Rose did say in post game that he felt the foul situation with the time remaining allowed him to press the team to start playing tougher D. But they did go back to inside and out and it worked. SM has the 7'0" Sr, so it won't be as easy, but still should start inside-out.

Who is the 7 footer? Don't they have an all league 6' 6" named Jones?



They have a guy names Rowley.

scott715 wrote:
Who is the 7 footer? Don't they have an all league 6' 6" named Jones?



They have a guy names Rowley.

Rowley is 7'. Not sure how much of a threat he is, though. He's averaging all of 1.7 pts per game and 1.5 rebounds. I admit, I have no idea whether he starts. Either way he doesn't appear to be much of a factor.



Rob Jones is their guy. He averaged 14 pts and 10 boards a game. Noah will have his hands full, though I suspect Abouo could take Jones as well.



Aside from Rowley, they don't have anyone over 6'9". We have a size advantage we need to exploit all night long.



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Sorry. My bad. Im thinking of Sacre, the 7-footer on Gonzaga.

EM_Puma wrote:

1) The perimeter game sometimes struggles and the offense doesn't quickly start pounding it inside to re-establish position, also, the bigs don't always rebound aggressively after shoots from the arc.

Steve Cleveland sure beat that subject to death of BYU needing to pound it inside last night to Hartsock and Davies. He couldn't get over how we kept attempting to pop the 3-pointer from the perimeter, kind of like we didn't take the game serious enough.



I liked Rose's mention that the game was scheduled when it was for the benefit of giving Carlino more time before conference play to play with the team. Much more than that, I'm going to just give it a pass.

IMO they weren't taking it seriously at all. They knew they would win it was just a matter of by how much. I don't blame them--nobody's 100% focused all the time. But I expect them to feed Davies and Noah a ton tonight.

dmcougar wrote:
Sorry. My bad. Im thinking of Sacre, the 7-footer on Gonzaga.

Who Noah and Anderson handled quite well last season.