This team has some major issues, folks.

Not really, they are just a fun team to follow. Have a very Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy the ride :) Go Cougars!

^ Great analysis.



Thoughts from the game (I figure most of you weren't able to watch since it wasn't on tv):



THE GOOD:

- Shooting. I'm not sure if it was a fluke or not... hopefully it was us finding our stride - or at least regaining it now that we finally had a chance to play a home game. This is stating the obvious: but if Emery can shoot this well consistently from now on, this team will be ten times harder to stop, and very arguably better than last years BYU team



- Defense. The defense was swarming. UTEP got a lot of "easy baskets," yes, but most of them seemed to come after we were up big - probably more evidence of Coach Rose not wanting the guys to foul than evidence of any sort of defensive weakness. Davies and Hartsock had a big load on their shoulders, and I thought they handled it.



- Adjustments. There were several things lacking at the beginning of the game: namely, protecting the ball and REBOUNDING. Both were corrected quickly, and by the end of the game, we were rebounding fantastically on both ends of the court.



THE BAD:

- Our big guys still look timid. So many times myself and others in the crowd found ourselves screaming "go up with it!" or "go strong! don't pass!" This particularly seemed to be the case with Davies and C. Collinswoorth. I also don't understand why Kyle doesn't drive more - he basically just catches the ball, fakes a 3, and then passes it. I'd love to see our guys play more aggressively, especially against aggressive teams like UTEP.



- The reffing. And I don't feel guilty or "cheap" for saying this since we won. Win or no win - some of the calls you would not believe. It wasn't awful the entire game, but it seemed like every 3-5 minutes there was a complete "WTF?" foul. I mean... bad bad calls. Inhumanly bad. Maybe not that bad, but bad. Glad it didn't affect the game - and to be honest, there weren't enough bad calls to really affect anyway.



- Abouo still looks stagnant on offense. His defense was still as high-octane as ever. Also - he is a turnover machine. I'm not sure his number of TO's were that high - but that's due to being benched near immediately due to foul trouble. He made a lot of stupid/risky passes that were nearly stolen. He's got to protect the ball better.



What a great game to see. I really feel bad you guys had to miss it - and it sucks even more that the country couldn't see it, because it was a damn impressive game.