Gunk's Keys to the Game

Here's what I think we need to do to beat St. Mary's tonight:



1) Davies plays within himself and puts together two solid halves. He's yet to do such. So far, he'll come out strong and disappear in the 2nd half or try to do too much in the 2nd half causing turnovers.



2) Noah Hartsock gets a lot of touches down low and scores 20+.



3) Abouo chips in 10+ points and turns the ball over no more than 3 times.



4) Carlino gets 8+ assists and no more than 3 turn overs.



5) Zylstra hits at least 2 three-pointers.



6) Perimeter defense contests every outside shot. Against Wisconsin and Baylor our guards had to help a lot on defense in the post creating outside opportunities for opponents. St. Mary's can shoot the ball so we can't give them any clean looks. Good news is, given our size advantage our guards should be able to stay out defending the perimter.



7) Bench provides 15+ points. We need Harrison, Winder and Austin to come in and step up. Can't have a loss in production with them on the floor. Given Winder and Harrison's athleticism these two should create some turnovers and get some easy transition baskets if played smart (I'm talking to you Harrison).



8 ) Last but not least, Noah, Davies, Austin and Abouo stay out of foul trouble. Let the guards (minus Carlino) do all the fouling. We have plenty of guards.

I don't think we need to do all eight of those things. I think if we hit 4-5 of them, we'll have a real good chance of winning.

We can actually win without doing ANY of these things, except #8.



I'm not discounting the list, Gunk. Just that we don't have to do all of those things to win, as Spiff said. St. Mary's isn't that good this year. They will probably go dancing, but will have a first or 2nd round exit.



This list is like a "Beat last years top 5 SDSU team" or "Beat New Mexico in the Pitt" type of list, or "Beat a currently ranked top 5 team in their home court" type of list.

By the way, #4 won't happen. Carlino will have at least 4 or 5 turnovers if he plays 30-ish minutes. St. Mary's athletic guards are the only thing they have going for them.



Also, don't expect #6 to happen. Zylstra and Noah don't rotate well to the baseline 3. Without Rogers playing, we don't have a shutdown guy on the perimeter. Abuou is our closest to it, and even he doesn't play great perimeter defense. His best D is on the low block against people trying to post him, and against slashers, and getting in the passing lanes. He will be so so, if and when we get into the zone.

I expect a fair amount of turnovers for Carlino. St Mary's guard line is pretty experienced. This is Carlino's first road game. Going to be a fun/great game to watch.

All 8 probably aren't all necessary. Got a bit carried away with my Christmas list.



Foul trouble, Noah, Davies, and Carlino's ability to work the ball around are main ones IMO.



Agree Zylstra and Noah aren't the best at rotating out. That's one of the reasons I would prefer Rogers start over Zylstra if Rogers were healthy. Carlino and Harrison and Winder will need to running around out there like mad men on defense. Noah and Abouo will be able to extend a bit more against St. Mary's.



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Although, if we do hit all eight, I could see us killing St. Mary's.

If we do all 8, we would maybe beat N. Carlolina, lol.

If we could hit all 8 consistently we'd be Sweet 16 bound again.

Looks like Gunk was right on. It would have taken all 8 and some reasonably consistent, fair reffing to win tonight.



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Nah. Just reffing and better defense around the perimeter. Not much you can do when an opponent shoots lights out for the game, and you have a matchup advantage, but aren't getting any calls your way.

We had this game. I know it sounds weird. But I think if the ref doesn't by the complete flop for Davies' 4th foul BYU pulls to within 8. SMC had gone cold. Instead, SMC hits an open 3, to go back up 13. Then Nate Austin misses 2 FTs. Then SMC gets a phantom foul on a basket and goes up 16. Game. Set. Match.



I don't think series of events happens if Davies scores.

It is the refs fault we gave them open 3's all game long. It is the refs fault we had no ball movement for a large part of the game. It is the refs fault we are playing 3 freshman and 2 players who arent D1 players as our guards. There were bad calls, but St. Marys had a few go against them also. The refs did not lose this game.

kfilly20 wrote:
It is the refs fault we gave them open 3's all game long. It is the refs fault we had no ball movement for a large part of the game. It is the refs fault we are playing 3 freshman and 2 players who arent D1 players as our guards. There were bad calls, but St. Marys had a few go against them also. The refs did not lose this game.

At one point in the game, SMC ran the same exact play three times and got the same exact wide-open three point shot off from the baseline corner. Our perimeter defense is atrocious and it's cost us 3 games so far.



Zylstra doesn’t belong on the court. Winder should take his spot. We started making a bit of a comeback with 10 min left off of Winder’s pressure D. Had Davies made his free-throws we would have been looking at a single digit deficit with 5 min to play.



Refs do suck, I’ve never seen so many offensive fouls in the last 3 – 4 games, but they aren’t the reason we lost.

Some where charges some where flops afte barely being touched.

And the MO killer, he flopped even before he got bodied up by Davies. Is that whats called a "pre-flop"? Maybe a "free-flop"? :-)

No the refs didn't lose this BYU did. But the first half foul disparity stunk to high heaven. And the pre-flop was freakin easy to see if the refs didn't have premature tweetilism.

Maybe BYU has modeled its perimeter defense after the perennially poor perimeter defense of the Jazz.

dmcougar wrote:
Maybe BYU has modeled its perimeter defense after the perennially poor perimeter defense of the Jazz.

Sure seems that way this year.