My opinion on why BYU "under achieved" last season

This is just my opinion so take it for what it is worth.



1st reason: Inexperience. BYU had a couple Sr's on the roster until they got hurt. The starting lineup was made up of Freshmen and sophomores. Inexperience matters even if we think that since 3 of the starters played together in high school and won a high school NC that they should have done the same thing the 1st year they play together in college.



2nd reason: Defense. BYU hasn't played good defense in years. I don't know why. Is it because of coaching changes where the defensive minded coaches left? Is it because the players all want to score and so they decide to not play the defense they were coached all week? I put this as reason 2 but it is really the most important thing that needs fixed whether Mika comes back or not. To Nick Emery's credit, it looked like he wanted to play good defense but just didn't which IMO affected his offense (see reason 3).



3rd reason: Emery had a horrible year offensively. Nick Emery looked to me to be a future superstar his freshmen year. Yes, he wasn't consistent but few freshman are. There were games where he looked like he was going to be a seriously dominant player, but last year he simply played terrible. Was it because he decided to try to be a defensive stopper and that took away from his offensive game? Was it because he was injured? I'm not sure, but if BYU is going to go anywhere next year, even if Mika comes back, we are going to need Nick Emery to play up to his potential.



These aren't the only reasons but they are the top 3 IMO. I hope to see some, if not all of these issues worked on and improved on next year or I will be hoping that Rose's seat becomes really hot if the team plays under its potential next year.

Haws got my expectations up with that first game of the season but I'll give him a pass. I agree with what you said on Emery. He looked like a superstar in the making as a Fr and heading into this past season I thought he was going to be our leading scorer with Mika shaking off the mission dust. I always hear so much about how the biggest leap in improvement is from Fr to So...hopefully Emery is just a year late on that.



Emery is not the main issue, but like you said, his lack of improvement was one of the contributing factors in our disappointing season.

agreed with defense being main culprit. it was bad at times.

byufan4ever wrote:
Haws got my expectations up with that first game of the season but I'll give him a pass. I agree with what you said on Emery. He looked like a superstar in the making as a Fr and heading into this past season I thought he was going to be our leading scorer with Mika shaking off the mission dust. I always hear so much about how the biggest leap in improvement is from Fr to So...hopefully Emery is just a year late on that.



Emery is not the main issue, but like you said, his lack of improvement was one of the contributing factors in our disappointing season.

Yeah, you are right. Don't misinterpret what I am saying with point 3 everyone. I am not putting the blame on Emery, I'm just making a point about him being an important part of the LP3. If he were on his game this last year, BYU wouldn't have lost some of the head scratcher games. We need him to be at his best even if Mika comes back.

No bench mentions? We had the worst scoring bench in the nation. We have young talent coming off missions that will help (Andrus, Dalton Nixon, possibly Seljaas coming back next year). With a healthy Peyton Dastrup that is already sounding good, and my guess is guys like Beo will get the boot when things get a little crunchy if we get a JC transfer or two.



The starters played pretty well, Emery included. They just played too much.

Brayden Green wrote:
No bench mentions? We had the worst scoring bench in the nation. We have young talent coming off missions that will help (Andrus, Dalton Nixon, possibly Seljaas coming back next year). With a healthy Peyton Dastrup that is already sounding good, and my guess is guys like Beo will get the boot when things get a little crunchy if we get a JC transfer or two.



The starters played pretty well, Emery included. They just played too much.

I only mentioned the starting lineup talking about inexperience. The Bench was part of the inexperience and was probably why it played so poorly. If our only Sr's hadn't gotten injured, the bench probably would have played better. Plus my 3 reasons were what I was saying were the main reasons. There were tons more but those were my main ones. And Emery was a shadow of the player he was as a freshman this year. He played far from well.

frdbtr wrote:

No bench mentions? We had the worst scoring bench in the nation. We have young talent coming off missions that will help (Andrus, Dalton Nixon, possibly Seljaas coming back next year). With a healthy Peyton Dastrup that is already sounding good, and my guess is guys like Beo will get the boot when things get a little crunchy if we get a JC transfer or two.



The starters played pretty well, Emery included. They just played too much.

I only mentioned the starting lineup talking about inexperience. The Bench was part of the inexperience and was probably why it played so poorly. If our only Sr's hadn't gotten injured, the bench probably would have played better. Plus my 3 reasons were what I was saying were the main reasons. There were tons more but those were my main ones. And Emery was a shadow of the player he was as a freshman this year. He played far from well.

Yeah, the seniors getting injured took us from talented starters and decent depth, to... Oh no. Everyone needs to play 35 mins a night. I think they just got fatigued. I think Emery (our best defender) got fatigued from all the exertion.



It's very possible that LJ Rose and Yoeli or Davis coming off the bench would have been huge for the team. We could have spelled our starters for longer, more often, and actually scored and not turned the ball over when the subs came in.

frdbtr wrote:

No bench mentions? We had the worst scoring bench in the nation. We have young talent coming off missions that will help (Andrus, Dalton Nixon, possibly Seljaas coming back next year). With a healthy Peyton Dastrup that is already sounding good, and my guess is guys like Beo will get the boot when things get a little crunchy if we get a JC transfer or two.



The starters played pretty well, Emery included. They just played too much.

I only mentioned the starting lineup talking about inexperience. The Bench was part of the inexperience and was probably why it played so poorly. If our only Sr's hadn't gotten injured, the bench probably would have played better. Plus my 3 reasons were what I was saying were the main reasons. There were tons more but those were my main ones. And Emery was a shadow of the player he was as a freshman this year. He played far from well.

Yeah, the seniors getting injured took us from talented starters and decent depth, to... Oh no. Everyone needs to play 35 mins a night. I think they just got fatigued. I think Emery (our best defender) got fatigued from all the exertion.



It's very possible that LJ Rose and Yoeli or Davis coming off the bench would have been huge for the team. We could have spelled our starters for longer, more often, and actually scored and not turned the ball over when the subs came in.

The only senior that was a loss for us was Davis. By the 5th game teams figured out LJ wasn't going to do anything with the ball other than pass it to someone. We dropped games we shouldn't have with our Seniors, so I don't give much stock to their presence.



Yes, with their injuries our bench got a lot thinner, but we were already losing games.



Lack of defense and youth are big factors, but the primary reason in my book is coaching. The team played sloppy ball a lot of the season. This was not a well-disciplined team. Things were downright chaotic at times, even with our level-headed seniors. I feel players of late have gotten away from Rose and company.



I can understand shots not falling. I can understand players not being quick enough on D. What I can't understand are players routinely dribbling down the court and launching a 3 pointer 5 feet behind the line with a defender in their face. What I also don't understand is a post player (cough...Mika) never passing it back out and taking on 2 or more defenders. It's hard to play inside-out ball when the ball never goes back out once it goes inside. There was very little team ball, and that's on Rose. The fact Mika is bailing, I think says a lot about the team and coaching dynamics.

LJ Rose is a million times better than Beo, and good bench minutes are good bench minutes.

Brayden Green wrote:
LJ Rose is a million times better than Beo, and good bench minutes are good bench minutes.

True. But go look at the games we lost even with LJ starting. No bench didn't help us, but even at full capacity we were unorganized and undisciplined. Rose has gotten more out of less talented teams.

Gunk wrote:

LJ Rose is a million times better than Beo, and good bench minutes are good bench minutes.

True. But go look at the games we lost even with LJ starting. No bench didn't help us, but even at full capacity we were unorganized and undisciplined. Rose has gotten more out of less talented teams.

"Full capacity". At what point this season were we at full capacity?



You mean the games where Elijah Bryant was out and hurt? Or the ones where Davis was hurt? Or the ones where Emery was hurt and/or sick?



If you want to have a conversation about why we didn't have a bench, that's an honest and decent conversation to have... But it's disingenuous in my opinion to pretend like Rose had a full deck going into this season, much less halfway through.



It's remarkable to me that some of you are unsatisfied with 22 wins and an NIT appearance when we had 1 reliable player all season, and our entire team could count Div 1 NCAA game experience on two hands.