2022-23 Season

I figure that we don't need a new topic for each individual basketball game. So I'll just start a new one and continue to post in here for the duration of the season.



First up, the Idaho St. game. Wow, how we struggled. Someone is going to have to step up and make some shots. And I'm going to say this early and often: Traore is not a C/5. In a half court offense against the better teams he is really going to struggle there. I think that he would absolutely thrive at the PF/4 position. But it is what it is. Johnson and Hall really stepped it up late and it'll be interesting to see how they do against San Diego St and later in the season.



Below is my statistical analysis of the game. Dallin Hall is my Player of the Game. 4 assists, 2 steals, and zero TOs! He was the go-to PG down the stretch in the 2nd half. Of those who played at least 15 minutes Rudi Williams had the lowest PER score so he gets my Struggled to Perform award. 22% from the field and 4 TOs. We had 23 team TOs and we want to be around 12 or below...


BYU Idaho St.PNG

Oh and Lee didn't play very well either. 0 points and 2 TOs. With his height advantage he should have been able to get a double-double against us...



And at least we aren't Oklahoma or USC...they both lost to teams that they should have crushed...ouch...

byufan4ever wrote:



And at least we aren't Oklahoma or USC...they both lost to teams that they should have crushed...ouch...

I missed the game due to work and my fist thought on seeing the score was "ouch" there's a problem here. Then I saw those two scores (And the Florida State score) and thought - "OK this thing is going around"

Wiilliams was the biggest disappointment of the night. The Barcello heir apparent was benched in favor of a freshman who hadn't played for two years prior to practices that began this past summer. That said, I expect him to bounce back and be phenomenal moving forward.



The other two disappointments: George, the future (?) NBA player, and Stewart, the player expected to make the biggest jump in production this year.

jadesroom wrote:

Wiilliams was the biggest disappointment of the night. The Barcello heir apparent was benched in favor of a freshman who hadn't played for two years prior to practices that began this past summer. That said, I expect him to bounce back and be phenomenal moving forward.



The other two disappointments: George, the future (?) NBA player, and Stewart, the player expected to make the biggest jump in production this year.

Yep, George disappointed too. Honestly, he's nowhere close to NBA ready. And he's also being played out of position at PF/4. He really needs to be at the SF/3, but we are just so short on bigs. Stewart, I think needs PT to get better, but if he plays like this he won't get more PT. I think that maybe by the time that conference play has rolled around he will have developed some and gotten better.

byufan4ever wrote:
Traore is not a C/5. In a half court offense against the better teams he is really going to struggle there. I think that he would absolutely thrive at the PF/4 position.

byufan4ever wrote:

Yep, George disappointed too. Honestly, he's nowhere close to NBA ready. And he's also being played out of position at PF/4. He really needs to be at the SF/3, but we are just so short on bigs.

Are we going to suffer through another year of people having to play out of position? I understand there were multiple injuries/illnesses that forced Pope's hand last year, but I was really hoping we'd be past that. It just sucks for the players put in that position and limits their potential, and it makes for a frustrating viewing experience for the fans.

tmoney35 wrote:

Traore is not a C/5. In a half court offense against the better teams he is really going to struggle there. I think that he would absolutely thrive at the PF/4 position.

byufan4ever wrote:

Yep, George disappointed too. Honestly, he's nowhere close to NBA ready. And he's also being played out of position at PF/4. He really needs to be at the SF/3, but we are just so short on bigs.

Are we going to suffer through another year of people having to play out of position? I understand there were multiple injuries/illnesses that forced Pope's hand last year, but I was really hoping we'd be past that. It just sucks for the players put in that position and limits their potential, and it makes for a frustrating viewing experience for the fans.

The problem is the only true center we have is Atiki. If we start him then there's no sub for him. I think that George can guard the 4 position, but so far he has shown zero inclination to play deep and post up. Offensively he's playing like a SF wing guard. 4 guards and a forward/center can be done, but with the right players and the right offense.

Pope gambled with the transfer portal and lost. Think how BYU's inexperience and lack of size would be different if BYU had Antoine Davis (NCAA scoring leader), 6'10" Mo Njie (transfer to SMU), 6'10" Fredrick King (Freshman at Creighton but reportedly much more advanced than Atiki).

For the game against San Diego St if you don't have Direct TV I heard that you can possibly stream it for free from the Mountain West Channel on your Roku. I've downloaded the channel and I guess I'll find out at 8:30...

San Diego St. game thoughts. Well, my first comment is about the crappy MW network. The 90s called and they want their broadcasting technology back. My eyes almost hurt from the visual quality. There were almost no replays shown probably because there were no good shots/angles to show them from. At one point the camera zeroed in on a player's face during a FT and it just stayed there not even showing if the shot went in. On another FT the camera went to the wrong basket. BYU TV broadcasting is 100x better! And the commentator! At least our BYU TV guys somewhat try to be objective, but this guy was a 100% homer. At one point he said "San Diego State is not getting the whistle." Excuse me??!! BYU had 26 fouls to 19 and SDSU shot 21 more FTs. 21!!



Ok, now on to the game. Despite losing BYU showed a lot more energy than against ISU. But TOs and our inability to drive into the lane are killing us. And going cold shooting in the last few minutes. Rudi is so frustrating to watch. He obviously has talent, but his slippery fingers and decision making are making me pull my hair out. He had an inbound pass where he just gently threw the ball up into the air right to two SDSU players. No BYU player within 10 feet.



Spencer Johnson gets the Best Performer award. He shot efficiently, hit 3s, and actually led our team in rebounds! I really feel that he will be at his best when someone else is being doubled and he can knock down open shots, but no one else is proving worthy of being doubled so he's gonna have to be a little more selfish and create his own shot more often. Hall goes from hero to zero and gets the Struggled to Perform award. He went from 4 assists and 0 TOs to 1 Ast and 4 TOs. This team is going to struggle against anyone if they can't hold onto the ball better.


BYU SDSU.PNG

With as many turnovers, as this team had, I was amazed the score was as close as it was. Johnson played outstanding. Williams and Hall collectively had 12 turnovers! Hard to win a game when your point guards do that. I was disappointed we could not defend the rim and how many second chance points San Diego State had. Pleasantly surprised to see the team play a top 20 team that well though. So there is hope yet.

Clutch shot by Hall for the win. Can’t figure out why the game was so close. We shot better, rebounded more, fouled less, made more free throws, and had 9 blocks. Two banked in threes (!!) for the other team might have helped some. 55% free throw shooting didn’t help us much either. We only had three turnovers in the second half so that’s something to build upon. We again blew a ten point lead so that’s a point of concern.

Sorry I didn't get this posted earlier! I've had issues getting CougarCorner to even load on my personal PC, work laptop, or my cell phone. Fixed for now so I'm back!



While we did a better job against Missouri St with TOs, the first half was horrible. And we still had 4 more TOs than them which led to more shot attempts for Missouri St which they converted into points. That's why it was close.



Noah Waterman gets the Best Performer award. 5/6 3s was very nice! However, he offers little in the way of rebounding and defense. I noticed him out of position multiple times on defense and offensive players easily shrug him off. Still, I was scratching my head as to why he was MIA in the last 4+ minutes of the game. Rudi once again gets the Struggled to Perform. I think he needs to be a spark off the bench. He actually started off ok, hit a 3, got an assist, he can rebound well for a guard. But his assist-to-turnover ratio continues to be very bad. Hall got the game winning basket, but that was his only make going 1/5 from the floor. He's a tenacious rebounder though. Not afraid to throw his body against much bigger players.


BYU Missouri St.PNG

I guess first half struggles against a much inferior opponent were the theme yesterday. If someone tracks FG% from uncontested shots we have to be near the bottom. So part of me says that our offense is working because we are getting clear open shots. But we just cannot knock them down. I want to see more of Trey Stewart driving to the rim because he's athletic enough to do it. I'm trying to figure out what the difference was in the second half that allowed us to pull away. I think we made a bigger emphasis on getting Traore and Atiki touches in the paint. Fous played very well, but Nicholls is a very small team. Their tallest starter was 6-7 and tallest on the roster is 6-8. Small like us. Traore plays bigger than his height, but he is still going to struggle at the 5 against bigger and better teams.



Traore and George actually tied in my PER, but I'm giving the Best Performer award to Traore due to him having less minutes. I guess his limited minutes was due to his foot problem that Blaine mentioned. I'm really sad that my boy Spencer Johnson gets the Struggled to Perform award. I was surprised that he had a team high 10 FGA as I don't recall him really shooting that much. Rudi was much better and even though he still had 5 TOs he actually had more assists (6) for the first time this season!


BYU Nicholls.PNG

I would kind of like to see Pope experiment with his roster a little bit more early on in the season. My idea is starting Hall/Johnson/Saunders/George/Traore with Rudi/Robinson/Waterman coming off the bench early to provide a spark. Next week we got 3 games in 3 days!

I'm out of town for Thanksgiving so I'll get these 3 tournament game ratings up when I get back.



We are bottom 7 in TOs per game. That's as bad as our football's defense. If we can figure that out we have a pretty good team.

Ok, here's my Battle 4 Atlantis tournament post. Two losses and then we started out losing badly in the third game and I was just about ready to write this team off for the entire season. But, wow, a 23 point comeback to eek out a win! We got better with our TOs each game so maybe we are finally starting to get that under control. A thought came to me that Pope should treat TOs like a fumble. Turn the ball over and you get subbed out next dead ball. I'm serious. It'll send a message. TOs = less PT.



USC - we lost the TO battle 17-14 and only a flurry of scoring late made this game close. For the most part we were not the better team. And USC went on to lose their other two games to Tennessee and Wisconsin. Best Performer was Spencer Johnson who led us in scoring and had 4 assists + 2 steals to just 2 TOs. Worst Performer goes to Noah Waterman. I actually think that he's improved on his rebounding and defense from the first few games, but he didn't shoot the ball well this game.


BYU USC.PNG

Butler - We actually won the TO battle 13-16, but despite that and Butler being down a few injured players we could not win. Butler lost their other 2 games in this tournament getting blown out by Tennessee and losing by 15 to NC State. Dreadful 3 point shooting did us in: 3/20 vs 7/15 for Butler. Traore had the single best game performance so far this season with a PER of 31.0. It seems like each game we wait until the second half to slow things down a bit and feed the post. Good things happen when the ball makes it into the paint. Rudi Williams gets the Worst Performer for the 3rd time this season with 4 TOs to just 2 assists. Can we bench him already?


BYU Butler.PNG

Dayton - A team with a depleted roster and a bad record coming into the game. They lost to Wisconsin and NC State the first two games. And we looked just dreadful at the beginning. I had the game on in the background while playing a board game with family so I didn't see exactly what we were doing so bad. To come back from 23 down shows amazing fight and spirit. But let's not act like this was an amazing win. I think they had another two players go down to injury during the game including their best player. We won the TO battle 11-13. George came through in the clutch and gets the Best Performer award. Efficient shooting, clutch 3s, hit most of his FTs, only 1 TO in 37 minutes. Can we please see this more Gideon?! Trey Stewart Struggled to Perform shooting just 1/6 from the field. I'm just not sure what he offers to this team. My hype for him is officially over. He's quick, but that's it. Can't shoot, doesn't use his quickness to beat his man. I just don't see a lot of basketball skill there.


BYU Dayton.PNG

Another quick post just to show our SOS so far...now I know that KenPom does NOT show how a team has performed so far and is nothing like the NET ranking that is used for March Madness, but it's what I have so far.



Idaho St - #323 - Home Win (Q4)

San Diego St - #18 - Away Loss (Q1)

Missouri St - #137 - Home Win (Q3)

Nicholls - #250 - Home Win (Q4)

USC - #64 - Neutral Loss (Q2)

Butler - #90 - Neutral Loss (Q2)

Dayton - #58 - Neutral Win (Q2)



BYU is at #69. I'm actually surprised that Dayton is that high. I think that KenPom still has too much preseason bias built into his ranking vs actual results, but it eventually gets taken out as the season progresses. So that gets us:



Q1: 0-1

Q2: 1-2

Q3: 1-0

Q4: 2-0



We don't feel like a March Madness team to me, but I'll revisit our resume once the OOC games are over.

I debated whether to even post anything about the Westminister game. They are a division 2 school and a bad one at that. This should have been an early season exhibition game and I don't think that it even counts as a Q4 win in the NET rankings for March Madness selection criteria. But, it counts as Pope's 150th win.



19 made 3 pointers! Can we please replicate that at home? We shoot so much better at the Vivint Arena than at the Marriott Center for some reason. It's not really a surprise that we had so many good performers, but Gideon George was the best. Led us in scoring with 15 points on a very efficient 5/6 FGs and 3/3 FTs. If there's one area we struggled at as a team it was FTs shooting just 55%. That has to change. Tanner Toolson logged 19 minutes, but struggled shooting just 2/6 and a dreadful 1/5 from the line.


BYU Westminister.PNG

byufan4ever wrote:

Another quick post just to show our SOS so far...now I know that KenPom does NOT show how a team has performed so far and is nothing like the NET ranking that is used for March Madness, but it's what I have so far.



Idaho St - #323 - Home Win (Q4)

San Diego St - #18 - Away Loss (Q1)

Missouri St - #137 - Home Win (Q3)

Nicholls - #250 - Home Win (Q4)

USC - #64 - Neutral Loss (Q2)

Butler - #90 - Neutral Loss (Q2)

Dayton - #58 - Neutral Win (Q2)



BYU is at #69. I'm actually surprised that Dayton is that high. I think that KenPom still has too much preseason bias built into his ranking vs actual results, but it eventually gets taken out as the season progresses. So that gets us:



Q1: 0-1

Q2: 1-2

Q3: 1-0

Q4: 2-0



We don't feel like a March Madness team to me, but I'll revisit our resume once the OOC games are over.

The first NET Rankings have been released and it's not good for BYU coming in at an embarrassing #190.



Idaho St. - #243 - Home Win (Q4)

San Diego St. - #45 - Away Loss (Q1)

Missouri St. - #168 - Home Win (Q4)

Nicholls - #299 - Home Win (Q4)

USC - #146 - Neutral Loss (Q3)

Butler - #63 - Neutral Loss (Q2)

Dayton - #163 - Neutral Win (Q3)

Westminister - NR - Neutral Win (worthless game that doesn't count lol)

South Dakota - #255 - Neutral Loss (Q4)



Q1: 0-1

Q2: 0-1

Q3: 1-1

Q4: 3-1



So our best win is against #163 Dayton and our worst loss is against #255 South Dakota. I knew this was a weak OOC schedule, but I did not expect us to struggle so much against it. How much does it take for Pope to be on the hot seat? He'll get at least two free passes in the B12. But if we can't even win against the likes of South Dakota in our OOC we are going to be looking at 10 wins or less in the coming seasons.

The UVU game was p[ainful to watch. Painful. Does this team have an offensive scheme? Do they even have set plays? And who coaches defense? Anyone? Of course making shots would help too. This may be the worst team I have seen at BYU in a long , long time.

BoiseBYU wrote:

The UVU game was p[ainful to watch. Painful. Does this team have an offensive scheme? Do they even have set plays? And who coaches defense? Anyone? Of course making shots would help too. This may be the worst team I have seen at BYU in a long , long time.

Yeah we are progressively getting worse each season under Pope. He did great to get Childs to return and to get Toolson to transfer and we could have had a deep tournament run his first season if not for Covid. But virtually every transfer portal player that he has brought in since has been a big miss and that's 75% of recruiting these days. I'd say more important than high school recruiting (unfortunately). George has been good, but I wouldn't really say he is a transfer portal product as he was stepping up from junior college.



UVU was #300+ in 3 point shooting coming into the game. They shot 11/24 (45.8%) against us. The basketball team's 3 point defense is akin to the football team's defensive pass rush. It stinks. Pope shook up his starting line-up and that didn't work.



Waterman is 6-11. I know he's a tweener. But he needs to play C so that Traore can play PF.



I've been watching a lot of college basketball (not just BYU) and here are my observations of the good teams. They have multiple big players 6-10 or taller. True centers, not a SF or PF playing out of position at C. They have guards that can take on their defender one-on-one and either score in the paint or assist to a wide open player. Teams that rely on 3 point shooting will lose games that they should win when they go cold. Teams that get into the paint whether by feeding the post players or guards driving to the hoop are the ones that look the strongest to me and will consistently beat almost anyone. We can't do those things. We don't have 6-10 centers on our team. We don't have guards that can beat their defender. We can barely pass the ball in the backcourt without a turnover let alone get it into the post. Then we settle for 4/27 3 point shooting.