Little Rock

We smoked them.



Really liked how our guards fed the big guys. Used that spacing and attention to free up the big guys down low for easy looks. Great passing on the night.



Haws missed some open 3s but had a good night. Liked his 4 assists.



Fischer lit up, leading all scorers.



Austin finished I think with 11 boards and 8 points.



Winder played really well. IMO he should be playing point. Liked how ran the floor.



KC struggled a bit offensively but had 6 assists and 8 boards.



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The first 8-10 minutes looked like another track meet like LBSU. But then BYU deceived to play some D and UALR went cold. Good to see betterD.

And yes, good to finally see the guards feed the bigs. That was the turning of the game, bc then other things opened up.

Great to see Haws with 4 assists. He won't score as much this year and will likely not get the scoring record from Jimmer. Didn't he need to average 23 or 24.

Fisher is definitely going to take up that slack. And once KC gets his game back, the three will be a pretty potent attack--if they keep feeding the bigs.

I like Winders minutes and still Halfords, even tho he can go cold, still. It is wierd to see him as backup PG.

Nice to see Worthingtons jump hook. It will be too one dimensional in conference, and as teams scout, but its good to see.

This team could continue to develop into a decent team, maybe a 10 seed and runner up in WCC. But man-to-man D will still be weak and lead to zone problems, UALR started to exploit that early and then went cold.

I hope Kaufusi continues to develop, bc his speed could be a difference maker. I like him and Austin as bigs together. Kaufusi has a lot to learn, but will be formidable paired up with Mika in two seasons.

I missed the last game. I like Fischer. I think he is an upgrade to Carlino. Very good shooter.

As I've made clear, besides BYU being my #1, I was born a bred a OSU Buckeye fan. So I took advantage of watching the earlier game of the evening of OSU vs. Marquette. It was nice to see what Matt Carlino was up to. He played practically the whole game as Marquette, because of injury/qualification issues, they only had 8 players dressed.



Carlino was a different player. Either he matured some over the year, or his coach had him on a short leash, but he didn't simply run down the court and launch a 3 10 seconds into the set. We seemed to then live or die by if it was an off or on night when Carlino was at BYU. Here he was the perennial point guard trying to work the ball inside. Marquette is more of a half-court offense working the in and out game. Problem for them was that OSU was run and gun and were popping the 3 one after another. Marquette fell behind eventually as I would have ran and gunned a team with only 8 players dressed as well. Overall I think it was a good thing for Carlino to leave for both sides, but I wouldn't have been sad if he had stayed.





Then I watched the BYU vs. ARLR game. First off it was almost like watching a high school game, after having watched a college level game. There was more athleticism and smoothness to both OSU and Marquette's game. It simply flowed different and was smooth. BYU scored well over the night, but I can't quite get my finger on it--it just looks very sloppy the way they do it--lacking grace and style, but somehow getting the job done.



I'll take Chase Fischer over Matt Carlino straight up, but both are good people to have on your team. I just don't think this team by committee is the answer. I think there needs to be a better, less changed rotation. After watching 4 games now I'd start Collinsworth, Haws, Fischer, Winder and Austin. Those five seem to gel well together and have a good flow about them.



Based on what I saw over the last four games, SDSU is going to beat us by a good 20 or more points.

So I went back to the previous 10 seasons and this has been our PER average (using my formula):


BYU PER 10 Year Ave.PNG

Here's how we performed last night:


BYU PER 2014-11-19.PNG

EM_Puma wrote:
As I've made clear, besides BYU being my #1, I was born a bred a OSU Buckeye fan. So I took advantage of watching the earlier game of the evening of OSU vs. Marquette. It was nice to see what Matt Carlino was up to. He played practically the whole game as Marquette, because of injury/qualification issues, they only had 8 players dressed.



Carlino was a different player. Either he matured some over the year, or his coach had him on a short leash, but he didn't simply run down the court and launch a 3 10 seconds into the set. We seemed to then live or die by if it was an off or on night when Carlino was at BYU. Here he was the perennial point guard trying to work the ball inside. Marquette is more of a half-court offense working the in and out game. Problem for them was that OSU was run and gun and were popping the 3 one after another. Marquette fell behind eventually as I would have ran and gunned a team with only 8 players dressed as well. Overall I think it was a good thing for Carlino to leave for both sides, but I wouldn't have been sad if he had stayed.





Then I watched the BYU vs. ARLR game. First off it was almost like watching a high school game, after having watched a college level game. There was more athleticism and smoothness to both OSU and Marquette's game. It simply flowed different and was smooth. BYU scored well over the night, but I can't quite get my finger on it--it just looks very sloppy the way they do it--lacking grace and style, but somehow getting the job done.



I'll take Chase Fischer over Matt Carlino straight up, but both are good people to have on your team. I just don't think this team by committee is the answer. I think there needs to be a better, less changed rotation. After watching 4 games now I'd start Collinsworth, Haws, Fischer, Winder and Austin. Those five seem to gel well together and have a good flow about them.



Based on what I saw over the last four games, SDSU is going to beat us by a good 20 or more points.

We shall see, but I don't believe that SDSU beats us by 20+. I think it will be a very competitive game. SDSU will lock down on BYU defensively making it difficult to score, but at the same time they are not an offensive juggernaut. BYU right now is definitely a work in progress as far as the rotation goes and will continue to be in a state of flux for the next little while. A lot of new guys getting some time and feel for things. Obviously Fischer has settled in no problem and has been a critical piece of the puzzle from day 1. Collinsworth will take some time to continue to round into form, but I like the progress so far. Haws, Austin, Winder, and Halford are known quantities. Worthington has improved more than I thought he would, and I hope he continues to improve going forward. The unknowns as to what their roles will be include Nielsen, Kaufusi, Toolson, Nixon, and Bartley. There aren't enough minutes for all of these guys, so it will be interesting to see who rises to the top. Here are the stat lines from 3 of the teams mentioned in your post. Without taking the time to do the math, can you identify who is who? So BYU didn't pass your eye test last night. Not always the best indicator. This team will be fine this year. Not great, but will be in the bubble discussion come March.



FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A OREB DREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF



23-50 8-23 9-13 5 18 23 17 6 1 16 12

46.0% 34.8% 69.2%



37-69 7-20 10-20 13 34 47 22 9 0 11 18

53.6% 35.0% 50.0%



32-49 8-15 2-4 1 25 26 23 7 3 18 17

65.3% 53.3% 50.0%

I think we are seeing team chemistry issues.



While I like a starting 5 of Winder, Fischer, Haws, KC, and Austin, our offense flowed the best last night with Winder, Fischer, Haws, Austin and Worthington.



Regardless, Winder needs more minutes. IMO, he should be starting. He flat out gets stops on defense, is stronger with the ball, and run the floor. If we are going to go anywhere this season it will be playing lock down defense and running the floor.



I look forward to watching the SDSU game next week. Will be a big test for this team.



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I have thought about what this team could have been with mature Carlino. But those days will never happen.



To me the most important thing was KC looked more like himself. He exploded once to get a rebound. He was doing his little post moves and getting into the paint. He still was rusty and his timing around the rim wasn't great. But progress.



Overall Little Rock was as not athletic or disruptive as Long Beach and we looked a lot better offensively. Defensively we had more cohesion.



Haws is Haws.



Austin looks like himself.



Winder seems to have found his game finally and needs to play.



I am of two minds on Halford. On one side is one of the best passers on the team. And he works really hard on D. But I am worried that his success comes from out working and out smarting people. When a team like SDSU ratchets up the D, I think he will become a turnover machine.



Worthington I think we will be an asset as long as he doesn't play too much.



Kaufusi looks like a player until he has the ball. Then he looks awkward and tentative.

I agree with Gunk on the starters: Winder, Fischer, Haws, KC, and Austin would be my preferred.



Anybody else notice how bad Neilson looked last night? He looked slow and klunky and looks more of a stretch 4 than a 5 but I doubt he can guard the 4. I hope he progresses soon because Worthington is a better player at this point.



I hope Rose settles on a rotation of these 9 guys:



1 - KC/Winder

2 - Fischer/Winder

3 - Haws/Winder/Toolson

4 - Austin/Nixon/KC/Worthington

5 - Austin/Kaufusi



I really don't have a lot of faith in Halford vs better opponents and I think Nixon will be a key component to our offense if he can develop/catch up fast enough. Toolson can give Haws a breather when needed but Haws will log a lot of minutes so his development will likely be pretty slow. Just imagine if Aytes is not Red-Shirted you could then give him Worthington's minutes.

Qman wrote:
I have thought about what this team could have been with mature Carlino. But those days will never happen.

Rose's offense is run 'n gun. While it's easy to look at Carlino and blame his failures on him, some of the fault does need to be put on Rose who preaches run 'n gun. Marquette runs a half court set offense. So, we'll see to different Carlino's.



Fischer probably suits Rose offense a bit more than Carlino as he's a bit more patient; however, Fischer plays the 2 not the 1. So comparing Fischer to Carlino is a bit like apples and oranges. If Carlino were on the team, they would not be competing for minutes against each other and in fact would probably be a very potent duo. Imagine what Carlino (one of the best passers we've seen at BYU) could do with Haws and Fischer on the court.



For the last several years one of the biggest holes in BYU's offense has been the 2. We haven't had a legit shooting guard in a long time. The last one we had was probably Emery, but even then Emery wasn't the greatest shooter.



Carlino had no 2 to work with and essentially had to play the role of a 2 while also playing PG. I certainly lean towards being a Carlino apologist, but I do think some perspective is only fair.

beauso79 wrote:

I really don't have a lot of faith in Halford vs better opponents and I think Nixon will be a key component to our offense if he can develop/catch up fast enough. Toolson can give Haws a breather when needed but Haws will log a lot of minutes so his development will likely be pretty slow. Just imagine if Aytes is not Red-Shirted you could then give him Worthington's minutes.

I'm with you on Halford. When he scores it's almost like a surprise - "Oh, where did that come from."



Halford gets pushed around a bit on defense and offense. With the ball he basically has to get around defenders. On defense, you'll notice an opponent can push into him and he'll go back a step or two which give the opponent enough space to shoot or drive.



Winder is bigger/stronger with just as good if not better handles. On defense, Winder isn't going to get pushed off as much and with the ball Winder can muscle his way through traffic. Better length too.



I'm still not sold on Kaufusi. The athleticism is there but once he get the ball he's no better than Nielson. Right now, Worthington over Kaufuis in my book. Worthington, I think, does a decent job on defense and can use his size a bit more.



All our bigs need to work on free throws.

Gunk wrote:

I have thought about what this team could have been with mature Carlino. But those days will never happen.

Rose's offense is run 'n gun. While it's easy to look at Carlino and blame his failures on him, some of the fault does need to be put on Rose who preaches run 'n gun. Marquette runs a half court set offense. So, we'll see to different Carlino's.



Fischer probably suits Rose offense a bit more than Carlino as he's a bit more patient; however, Fischer plays the 2 not the 1. So comparing Fischer to Carlino is a bit like apples and oranges. If Carlino were on the team, they would not be competing for minutes against each other and in fact would probably be a very potent duo. Imagine what Carlino (one of the best passers we've seen at BYU) could do with Haws and Fischer on the court.



For the last several years one of the biggest holes in BYU's offense has been the 2. We haven't had a legit shooting guard in a long time. The last one we had was probably Emery, but even then Emery wasn't the greatest shooter.



Carlino had no 2 to work with and essentially had to play the role of a 2 while also playing PG. I certainly lean towards being a Carlino apologist, but I do think some perspective is only fair.

I think we mostly agree. I think with Carlino we would be an awesome team who would have a real chance of unseat Gonzaga and making a tourney run.



By 'mature' I meant him sacrificing parts of his game to help the team. He did come off the bench last year and made some sacrifices to help the team. But then he transferred.



But enough about Carlino. I am interested in this years' team.

Granted our opponents weren't world beaters, but I was impressed with how the bench managed to grow leads when they were in and how interchangeable guys like Nixon, Austin etc. were.



I think we sucked in the 1st game, our depth is wearing on teams. We're fresh at the end and they're not. This bodes well for us if we can find a way to get past SDSU next week, but if not, we will boatrace Chaminade and the rest of the consolation bracket... but the biggest take home is that we're built for the WCC tourney. We can handle back to back games with our depth.

Carlino was always, and still would be our best passer. When you have the ball, someone has to take shots. Too often he was the guy holding the ball when everyone else (including Haws and KColl) were standing around. So, he goes somewhere with an actual post presence and he feeds the post. It isn't weird, and it isn't coaching. He has someone to PASS the ball to! He looked for Haws coming off double screens plenty (when Haws wasn't gassed in the first half). Oh well, he isn't here. Fischer isn't an upgrade at this point, not at the point guard slot. When they start playing teams that actually matter we'll see what kind of team BYU is. Right now, it looks kind of disjointed, but I'll take the Ws and hope that cheistry is the issue, and that it improves with more face time.

Well there are a lot of new faces on the court. It will take time.



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