BYU v Gonzaga (WCC Tournament Finals)

Cougars struggled to end the first half. Will need a huge 2nd half to make this a game.

First 15 min were pretty good. Went from tied to down 9 quickly.

Zag defense is impressive. We have not had a lot of good looks, and a lot of that is attributable to their D

0-7 second half.

Hard to win shooting like that.

Haven't scored in 4+ minutes second half.

18-0 Zag run. Ugh

2 points in nearly 7 minutes for BYU.

19 points for zags in same time.

gonzaga simply running circles around BYU.

either BYU is gassed, or they've given up.

Gonzaga defense. Tenacious. Fast. Quick. MAN on MAN.

BYU defense. Slow, reactive, late, ZONE.

Vitale - mismatch

Yes. Yes it is.

BYU has really thrown up some odd shots in the second half.

deleted by me

36-4 run...

Man the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

a sign of life? BYU just went on a 6-0 run I think.



Make that a 10-0 run.

Good luck Zags. Good to know we have a consistent conference mate who represents well in the tournament.

Mark Few is Midas.

No shame losing to Gonzaga. They are an outstanding team who play well and are lead by one classy coach

What a painful game. We'll, we gave them one good half.



Our guys were dead.



On to the NIT.

Gonzaga is head and shoulders above everyone else in the conference. Few just reloads every year. BYU has a long way to go to get to that level. The good news is, we have a young team so if we can hold all the guys together, we could make a run at a conference championship in a couple of years. IMO BYU and St Mary's are pretty even in the conference this year. Yes, they beat us twice and didn't stumble more than once to a team not named Gonzaga or BYU but IMO if BYU pulls out that home OT loss to St Mary's, BYU is the second place team this year and we aren't loaded with Sr's. While it is frustrating to see losses to teams we shouldn't lose to, I think Coach Rose has done a good job this year. This years team is better than last years and we lost 2 players that were huge talents in the off season. Hopefully we can get an NIT bid and do some damage as a consolation and continue to improve for next year.

What I am curious about is why our players in the second half decided to throw out team basketball and try to play hero. I'm pretty sure Rose didn't tell them to throw out the playbook and just go 1 on 3 or 1 on 4 and everyone else just stand around so we have nobody under to get rebounds. Oh and lets chuck a bunch of 3s. So was it the Zags D or was it our pathetic outside shooting, a combo? It was frustrating to watch our players decide to take it upon themselves to score and drive in and take a bad shot. Good luck guys in the NIT. Lets go beat some good teams and get to NY.

All of my talk about next year was trying to put a positive spin on getting absolutely worked by Gonzaga last night.