Archived Topic

A Blessing in Disguise?

by FurriousCougar · 2/28/2010

FurriousCougar

2/28/2010, 12:18:02 AM

I'll be the first to admit that maybe I am just desperate to feel better...but maybe, just maybe this game was really a blessing in disguise.

1. I've thought all year that Jimmer has to play too much. We certainly learned tonight that we can trust Lloyd to be good enough to sub in for a Jimmer. Furthermore, we learned that we SHOULD do this. We've always known his defense was better, but now we don't have to worry about the Offense taking much of a hit, and he can provide a spark. Most importantly, Lloyd should have all the confidence in the world when he plays now.

2. I think we've learned (hopefully), that defense needs to be our focus, and that we shouldn't worry that to do so we might have to take out some good offensive players sometimes, because that defense will provide PLENTY of offense. Personally, I think it would be VERY interesting to see a line up of Lloyd, Emery, Abouo, Tav, and Davies play the majority of a game. Not suggesting it per say, but man, that is a potent Defense right there that would create a lot of spark, steals, fast break points, and athleticism.

3. Maybe this game takes a bit of pressure off the cougs.

Thoughts? Am I just desperate?

scott715

2/28/2010, 12:24:59 AM

Well Loyd had his coming out party today. It looks like he has finally made that major step up to be a great player. If he can play like that, it gives Rose more options. More time for Loyd, a 4 guard line up ect. If Jimmer leaves we have his replacement. I also hope that we can sign his brother in LV. loyd is not as good of a 3 point shooter as Jimmer but he can work on it. Good game. If we had won, think of all of the acolades he would had received.

CannonCougar85

2/28/2010, 12:28:51 AM

I think you are right on in what you are saying but I never consider a loss a blessing, in fact I consider a close loss like this to be 1 year off of my life in the end. My blood pressure goes through the roof. But a loss is never a blessing, especially one that means as much as this one did.

1- Lloyd played amazing. He was tough and fast and nobody could guard him. If he had a sub then maybe he would've even had a bigger impact towards the end the way he was playing. He really was the spark for the Cougs in the second half. I didn't like how he handled that last play though. Chances are he misses from that distance but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. But really he played out of his head and I hope he gets more playing time.

2- 3 point defense. In the last two loses the opposing team has had way too many open 3's. I really hope BYU tightens this aspect of their D.

Gunk

2/28/2010, 12:34:39 AM

FurriousCougar wrote:
I'll be the first to admit that maybe I am just desperate to feel better...but maybe, just maybe this game was really a blessing in disguise.

1. I've thought all year that Jimmer has to play too much. We certainly learned tonight that we can trust Lloyd to be good enough to sub in for a Jimmer. Furthermore, we learned that we SHOULD do this. We've always known his defense was better, but now we don't have to worry about the Offense taking much of a hit, and he can provide a spark. Most importantly, Lloyd should have all the confidence in the world when he plays now.

2. I think we've learned (hopefully), that defense needs to be our focus, and that we shouldn't worry that to do so we might have to take out some good offensive players sometimes, because that defense will provide PLENTY of offense. Personally, I think it would be VERY interesting to see a line up of Lloyd, Emery, Abouo, Tav, and Davies play the majority of a game. Not suggesting it per say, but man, that is a potent Defense right there that would create a lot of spark, steals, fast break points, and athleticism.

3. Maybe this game takes a bit of pressure off the cougs.

Thoughts? Am I just desperate?

I think you are certainly right in that it takes pressure off the Cougs, which is good because so far we stink at playing under pressure. I think this loss and UNM wining the MWC gives our guys a much needed piece of humble pie going into the Las Vegas Invitational and NCAA tourney. They now have to prove that they are the better MWC team.

Agree on the Lloyd part too. We depend way, way too much on Jimmer. BYU looked like a lost kid at Disney Land out there in the first half without Jimmer.

I hope Rose realizes JT sucks at playing the zone and if he opts to go with the zone he needs to pull Jimmer and JT out of the game. Neither of those guys can rotate quick enough or stay in front of their man. Personally, I think Abuou should have been in the game in the last few minutes. Abuou boxes out better and plays better D, which is what we needed...not prayer shots from 5 ft behind the arch.

Most importantly, I hope this loss teaches Rose to make better adjustments and I hope losses like this warm Rose up to the idea of actually establishing an inside game.

mizzoucoug

2/28/2010, 1:39:30 AM

Agreed. We needed Abuou out there in place of JT to swing around. We could've put the game away with about 3-4 mins left when they were hitting those open 3's due to lack of rotation on the right corner.

AmmonCougar1

2/28/2010, 5:40:43 AM

I am always a 1/2 full kind of guy and such a mentality after a game like that goes something like this...

If I had to lose a game against NM and it was between this one and the Vegas Invitational Championship game, I would rather lose this one. Here are is my rationale:

1) More momentum for the utah game which had the potential to be a letdown game had we swept this weeks games.

2) A five game win streak entering the NCAA tourney instead of a 1 game losing streak.

3) A better seeding in the NCAA's because we will be a day removed from beating a legit top 10 team on Selection Sunday when results are fresh in the mind of those who create the brackets.

4) A backup point guard with more confidence than before (as discussed in this thread already)

5) A hungrier team come Vegas invitational time after a week and a half of having to hear the naysayers suggesting we can't win the big games.

Go Cougs!!!

J. Child

Ammon, ID

Metal Bubba

2/28/2010, 12:49:22 PM

You make some darn good points. In the end I like what we learned about Lloyd from this game and what he learned about himself. I like that we did pretty good when Rose went to a more athletic lineup to counter UNM's atheltic superiority. I think this games bodes well for the rest of the year and I'm excited going into March.

As I watched Lloyd dominate I kept thinking, "What if he has to make a decision at the end of the game?" As it turns out, he did and it was not a good one. However, that's more an experience thing and he'll learn from the mistake of giving it up to Hartsock for a big shot.

That three point defense was pretty sad though.

Mars

2/28/2010, 2:34:50 PM

Gunk wrote:
I hope Rose realizes JT sucks at playing the zone and if he opts to go with the zone he needs to pull Jimmer and JT out of the game. Neither of those guys can rotate quick enough or stay in front of their man. Personally, I think Abuou should have been in the game in the last few minutes. Abuou boxes out better and plays better D, which is what we needed... not prayer shots from 5 ft behind the arch.

Coach Rose mentioned specifically after the win over SDSU that Tavernari's great zone defense was one of the major reasons we were able to shut the Aztecs down. :skeptic:

Gunk

3/1/2010, 1:50:52 AM

Mars wrote:
I hope Rose realizes JT sucks at playing the zone and if he opts to go with the zone he needs to pull Jimmer and JT out of the game. Neither of those guys can rotate quick enough or stay in front of their man. Personally, I think Abuou should have been in the game in the last few minutes. Abuou boxes out better and plays better D, which is what we needed... not prayer shots from 5 ft behind the arch.

Coach Rose mentioned specifically after the win over SDSU that Tavernari's great zone defense was one of the major reasons we were able to shut the Aztecs down. :skeptic:

Interesting...must have used it all up against SDSU because he stank against UNM. JT didn't have the best D against UNLV either.

Unrelated to JT, I thought this comment by Rose was interesting:

"Dave Rose did say after the game that he felt BYU needed more plays going to the hoop, and that BYU became too much of a jump-shooting team. That belief is reflected in the fact that New Mexico took 14 of the game's last 18 free throw attempts." http://www.ksl.com/?nid=498&sid=9841826

So maybe there's hope for of an inside presence.

Lawboy

3/1/2010, 2:38:39 AM

Only way this loss is a blessing in disguise is if we end up with the #2 seed and UNLV ends up with the #4. If the loss helps us have a better route to the tourney final, I consider it a blessing because we do not play well in Vegas against UNLV. Otherwise, no.

Iceman

3/1/2010, 2:41:08 AM

Just box out! Moan.... :sulk:

SpiffCoug

3/1/2010, 2:52:45 AM

I only got to listen to the game. And since I don't have VS I couldn't DVR it. And I haven't had a chance to see a replay. Here's my take:

BYU couldn't rebound. If they had rebounded like they did against SDSU they would have won. So what was the difference? I think it was guard rebounding.

Against UNM, we allowed UNM to grab 39 boards to our 30. They grabbed 11 offensive boards to our 7. But our guards (Jimmer, Loyd, Emery, Haws & Abouo) grabbed 15 rebounds, 11 of which were defensive.

Against SDSU we grabbed 33 boards and the Aztecs had 36, but just 5 offensive boards. Our guards in this game grabbed 22 rebounds and all but four of them were defensive.

Thoughts?

Gunk

3/1/2010, 3:05:40 AM

kitic77 wrote:
I only got to listen to the game. And since I don't have VS I couldn't DVR it. And I haven't had a chance to see a replay. Here's my take:

BYU couldn't rebound. If they had rebounded like they did against SDSU they would have won. So what was the difference? I think it was guard rebounding.

Against UNM, we allowed UNM to grab 39 boards to our 30. They grabbed 11 offensive boards to our 7. But our guards (Jimmer, Loyd, Emery, Haws & Abouo) grabbed 15 rebounds, 11 of which were defensive.

Against SDSU we grabbed 33 boards and the Aztecs had 36, but just 5 offensive boards. Our guards in this game grabbed 22 rebounds and all but four of them were defensive.

Thoughts?

We clearly didn't crash the boards. That's a given. But it's also apparent that a large percentage of our boards are coming from our guards, which is a little concerning if you ask me. Ideally, especially in a transition offense, you want the center or forwards to pull the boards down and send it down court to the streaking guards. Can't really say our guards grabbing boards hinders our transition offense, especially since we had so many points against SDSU in transition; however, clearly if our guards aren't consciously crashing the boards as if they were power forwards we suffer.

More and more Rose's style of play reminds me Don Nelson's small ball style - one of the greatest coaches ever to never win an NBA championship.

Lawboy

3/1/2010, 4:59:16 PM

I agree that Rose style with this group is small ball. But I also think that reason for this is because our depth and skill set is with the smaller, outside shooting type of players. We are weak inside for sure. Just look at rebounding. Our bigs just do not board well, and it killed us v. UNM, hurts v. UNLV and SDSU. And I bet it will be an issue v. Utah. When the guards have to be outstanding rebounders just to compete in that area, you got problems.

But I am not saying anything that is not obvious. The 4 and 5 positions are the weakness of this BYU team. And if this team struggles in the NCAA tourney--again--it will be because we get match ups against teams with stronger interior play. We'd get chewed up in the Big East this year for this reason alone. I hope we play strong in the MWC seed tourney to improve our seeding. An early loss will get us a #6 or worse, guaranteed. We need to win out and get that #4 seed.

scott715

3/1/2010, 6:04:57 PM

A lot of the guard rebounds is from long rebounds due to missed 3's. Those will vary alot. NM was making their 3's so there were less long rebounds. A rebound put back was the winnig basket. the opponents are more athletic than our big men.

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