Measured

I hedged as to whether this team was very good - Like last year and a few other recent years - or BETTER. I said I would not be able to tell until Wed, Jan 5. Last night was the measuring stick. This is a great BYU team and worthy of it's Top 15 ranking.



Looking like a Cinderella sweet 16 team like the one led by Danny Ainge. If the Collinsworth brothers get and stay healthy and sharpen their outside shooting and free throw shooting - I think we go elite 8. It doesn't absolutely need to be them - more from Abuo or Mags would do the trick.



We are elite 8 caliber with Jimmer, Jackson, and Brandon's level of play. Hartsock is rock solid. Some others have their moments but need more consistency. Maybe I am forgetting someone.



But what I am saying is that if one or two of the aforementioned becomes consistently as strong as Noah or better - elite 8. We already look sweet 16 if we don't get screwed by the seeding and site selections. BYU deserves a 4 or better in a western time zone.



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BYU has a leg up on the other MWC contenders having a road win Vs a big 4 team. If everyone holds serve at home but loses to the big 4 on the road and beats everyone else - we win. We already broke that expected pattern.



And we have time to build momentum and hopefully get Chris Collinsworth healthy before we run into SDSU.



I think this race comes down to that - BYU or SDSU and we have a leg up.



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Good observations. BYU now has the inside track after the very first game. The first half of the MWC conference schedule is very favorable to BYU. In fact, I like how the schedule is set up for BYU overall in conference play.



Now, I would love a rematch with Syracuse with Jimmer going all Jimmer on them, as opposed to going "McNamara" on them, since Jimmer does it week after week.

For the record, the Danny Ainge team was a Elite 8 run.



And Jimmer is a much better player than McNamara. McNamara was a streak shooter who could catch fire relatively frequently. Jimmer is a flat out elite scorer. He can beat you off the dribble. He can kill you from outside. He can get to the line an insane amount of time, if needs be.



In all honesty, if you're an MWC team, you can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. BYU may not run into a team that can stop him until deep into the tourney.

I don't think they call it a "Cinderella" run to the sweet sixteen if you have a 4 seed and are ranked in the top 15 in the polls.



At this point, it'll be a disappointment if they don't get at least that far, because not getting there means you got upset in the tourney.

snoscythe wrote:
I don't think they call it a "Cinderella" run to the sweet sixteen if you have a 4 seed and are ranked in the top 15 in the polls.



At this point, it'll be a disappointment if they don't get at least that far, because not getting there means you got upset in the tourney.

I agree, but I assume we get screwed as usual and need to fight through a bad seeding. Hope not. - but in some ways we are already a Cinderella team having moved way up in the polls after starting out barely on the radar screen. Gonna move up a few more spots, too, before we play San Diego. Barring a melt-down by them or us between now and then, maybe a match-up between two top-10 teams.



That is a Cinderella story in my book. It seems impossible, but if we win out - it would be very hard for the committee to screw us too bad - 2 seed at worst. But, that still looks nearly impossible given our SOS in MWC this year.



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Cougarbib2 wrote:
I hedged as to whether this team was very good - Like last year and a few other recent years - or BETTER. I said I would not be able to tell until Wed, Jan 5. Last night was the measuring stick. This is a great BYU team and worthy of it's Top 15 ranking.



Looking like a Cinderella sweet 16 team like the one led by Danny Ainge. If the Collinsworth brothers get and stay healthy and sharpen their outside shooting and free throw shooting - I think we go elite 8. It doesn't absolutely need to be them - more from Abuo or Mags would do the trick.



We are elite 8 caliber with Jimmer, Jackson, and Brandon's level of play. Hartsock is rock solid. Some others have their moments but need more consistency. Maybe I am forgetting someone.



But what I am saying is that if one or two of the aforementioned becomes consistently as strong as Noah or better - elite 8. We already look sweet 16 if we don't get screwed by the seeding and site selections. BYU deserves a 4 or better in a western time zone.



It was Rogers I was forgetting. We have Jimmer who is good on a bad night and incredible at times, plus Jackson, Brandon, and Noah whom defenders will pay if they ignore on most nights.



We just need 1 more to more consistently ensure that teams can't double up too much on Jimmer and we can play with almost anyone.



It is really too bad Emery wasn't 100% when we played UCLA.



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