Improvements Needed For Next Year

1. Need to avoid the poor start - for second straight tourney game they came out flat. Did similar thing when playing SM, Zags and LMU. This has to end if they are to win big games.

2. Carlino needs to reduce turnovers, wild shooting, poor judgment on traps - he was a non-factor in the last portion of the season (WCC and NCAA tourneys). Game teams opportunity to beat us in transition game off of turnovers, never allowed our bigs to get into rythmn.

3. We need some good shooting, lockdown wing and front-line players (3-4 positions). Abouo disappeared in the two NCAA tourney games. That is a major disappointment coming from a senior and a player who had international competition experience. Zylstra doesn't take it to the next level.

4. Cusick needs to be more playing time with the team. He had two outstanding games in the NCAA tourney: good defense, can hit the shot, good decision-making, would like to see his footwork improve on quick defenders.

5. We need sidekick for Davies to provide offensive support so that he doesn't get doubled everytime he gets an entry pass. We also need some strong rebounders: Marquette killed us on the boards.



In summary, if we get some good shooters, athletic defenders and good rebounders, we will be back in the tourney next year.

I have always been bugged by coaches who make dumb "group think" decisions as a coach. BYU is getting killed by Marquette, and your best player has 3 fouls. So what? if he doesn't play you lose the game, so why take him out? leave the guy in and take your chances. Hartsock misted 15 minutes of the game, and he didn't foul out anyway. Dumb decision to sit him so long. Sit him a few minutes maybe, but not across the half and well into the second half. Not one of Rose's better decisions.



And while I'm on a rant, how can you be a division one player and not score in a game? or not compete? How can you be a point guard and not handle the ball, or a big man and not rebound (Hartsock got none!)?



To be honest, I did not expect much out of the team this year, not great talent on the floor, and injuries made it tough for Rose, but my biggest disappointment with these guys was how they just disappear for long stretches in games, multiple games (Abouo). The comeback yesterday was great, but how can you get down by 25 in one half of basketball?

Hartsock was likely on the bench for a longer period of time due to the bone spurs in his ankle



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Toss the zone "D" in favor of some man-man. Teams kill us on the glass in the zone.

Improvements needed:



1 - Consistent scorer from the outside. We need a guy at the 1, 2, or 3 that puts up 12+ points a game. Someone defenses have to worry about and someone to counter Davies' inside presence. No consistent outside threat allowed defenses to stack the box. We were way to streaky on shooting.



2 - Ball handling. Too many turnovers. If I were Rose I would toy with moving Carlino to the 2 and having Cusick run point. Winder actually did a better job at it than Carlino so Winder can spell Cusick.



3 - Post play. Don't get me wrong Davies posts up real well, but did you see how even with smaller players Marquette dominated in the paint. We would collapse on D, just like teams will do against Davies, and Marquette would immediately send a guy back door, easy layup. We do not do these. We play way too much 1:3 in the post. Simple game planning is all it takes.



4 - Perimeter defense. Ours sucks and it has to get better.



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I want to see Rose and/or an assistant go to a primary zone team (Syracuse, Temple, etc) and get better at it.

Rose's assessment of the team after the Marquette game:



"We had such consistent play from our front line, but I think that we really kind of juggled our guard line depending on individual play that night."



Freshman Matt Carlino, was overwhelmed by Marquette’s quicker, faster guards and struggled again. He was 2-for-10 from the field and committed five turnovers in 32 minutes...Rose said. "But I think that as a true freshman, when you are in your 20th game, 21st game, those are places where you’ve never been before as a player. I think this experience has been extremely valuable for him."



Rose also acknowledged that inconsistent outside shooting was also a problem the Cougars never solved. "Somewhere in the middle of the season, our confidence, as far as our perimeter shooting, became an issue."

A healthy Stephen Rogers and game ready Haws.

Austin learning some post moves and stop settling for 20' jumpers.





The End.

Quite a different feeling from the ending of last season where we didn't want to close the door on the Jimmer Fredette train. At least if brings us next season to a different beginning point than where we started this one.



I struggle to see where the value was gained from our trip to Greece. It should have provided more value, and maybe it did and yet it was undicernable. I believe that only SMC from our conference had a pre-season international tour.

I'm worried that Noah Hartsock may be harder to replace than Jimmer was... and then I think that I'm stupid for worrying about that, but the team with no Jimmer last year played better than our team with no Noah this year. Jimmer was a volume scorer, Noah was crazy efficient

BYU should have just forfeited the Marquette game and ended the season on a high note afetr beating Iona. BYU should have taken the win and let Iona advance.

1. Guard line will work itself out. There was talent there, what we lacked was maturity. One more year=better guard line.

2. 3 will work out fine, we have Haws coming off a mission, Rogers will be ready and we can move Zylstra there occasionally to pick up some minutes.

3. Davies will be fine at center, we will be able to rotate between Collingsworth, Austin for our other big men and we have Harward coming off a redshirt.

Worst case, either Collingsworth or Rogers (or both) is still struggling with knee injuries, but even then, we are a solid 2 deep at most posistions with Zylstra alternating between the 2 and 3 position.

Next year's team will be more competitive, more well rounded, better from the FT line, more mature. The improvements are there.

The only improvement that I want is to never, never, never play a rivalry game on the road to start the year, ever again.

SpiffCoug wrote:
BYU should have just forfeited the Marquette game and ended the season on a high note afetr beating Iona. BYU should have taken the win and let Iona advance.

You're funny, Spiff. For someone that criticized Heaps fairly pointedly and repeatedly, I find your refrain from critique of Carlino, Rose, and the bball team a bit hypocritical.



Just because people recognize there are areas of improvement and like to talk about such areas doesn't mean we're a bunch of sour grapes. You may be content sticking your head in the sand and singing nothing but praises, but some of us like to critique. A forum would get pretty boring pretty fast if we just were content with our team's performance.



Forgive us if some of us aren't content with one and done NCAA tournament appearances and finishing 3rd in the WCC, regardless of "reloading" or "building" years.

Actually, I was simply upset I got stuck at work and couldn't watch yesterday's game. So didn't get to watch how bad they were.



I do think Rose coached a very good game against Iona. I'm willing to give him and Carlino a bit of a pass for going up agaisnt Marquette. BYU was playing on short rest, with really only one day to prepare for a very good team. A team that finished 2nd in the Big East (arguably a top two bball conference) and had two players on the conference's all-conference team and the conference's player of the year.



That POY was also a senior, so it really shouldn't be too surprising that he 1) dominated our freshman PG and 2) caused our freshman PG to look very bad. Jimmer did similar things to young PGs last year.



Carlino MUST get better at protecting the ball. His turnover rate the last 10-15 games was very poor. His shot selection was much more JT-like than Jimmer-like.



I apologize if I've been quiet on my criticism this year, but I never really got into the statistical analysis this year like I did last year.

Also, my post was somewhat TIC. I wish BYU simply could have ended the season on the high of the Iona game instead of crashing back to the reality of the kind of team they really were in the Marquette game.

Gunk wrote:
You may be content sticking your head in the sand and singing nothing but praises, but some of us like to critique. A forum would get pretty boring pretty fast if we just were content with our team's performance.



Forgive us if some of us aren't content with one and done NCAA tournament appearances and finishing 3rd in the WCC, regardless of "reloading" or "building" years.

Are you talking to Spiff here? This is Spiff. I think he is fairly well versed in the nuances of criticism, and the importance of an honest critique.

SpiffCoug wrote:
Also, my post was somewhat TIC. I wish BYU simply could have ended the season on the high of the Iona game instead of crashing back to the reality of the kind of team they really were in the Marquette game.

Sorry, I failed to pick up on the TIC. I did think it was a bit uncharacteristic.



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Some areas I think so of BYU's players need to improve on for next year:



- Carlino's decision-making. Many of his turnovers were due to poor decisions (long passes, etc). An dhis shot selection must get better as well. I'd also like to see him go to the hoop more. He takes too many jumpers.



- Austin must find/develop a low post move. He can shoot the three, I like the range, but he needs a move he can use around the bucket. Right now, he's just a garbage man around the rim - cleaning up for teammates. He needs to get his fouling under control. Averaging 8 fouls per 40 minutes won't help BYU.



- Zylstra must find a way to contribute against athletic teams. He can't just disappear against the tougher competition. He needs to be more aggressive in going to the rim as well. As a leader, he can't shrink in the moment or in big games. Look at how many attempts he had in our losses. He's afraid of the good teams.



- Davies has to continue developing that 10-15 foot jumper. His rebounding must also be more consistent.



- Winder must find more consistency in his outside shooting. But he needs to add a slash to the basket ability as well. BYU can't be just a team of spot up shooters. We need guys who can penetrate from the wings.



- Collinsworth and Rogers must stay healthy. Getting healthy should be easy - they have 8 months to do so. But staying healthy seems to be the problem for these two.



- Cusick must improve his penetrating. He shoots decently (although it did disappear late in the year), and he is a good passer who can run the Rose offense. But BYU needs a PG who can get to the rim (Carlino can - when he doesn't stop & pop from 20 feet).



- Rose needs to find a way to improve Carlino's shot selection. He needs to improve his team's perimeter defense. Too many teams were too hot, too often from behind the arc this year. BYU had poor starts way too often. BYU got behind early against good teams too much. Rose did great to adjust against teams (Gonzaga on the road, Iona, etc) but adjustments are good, but lets just start better.