James Anderson

[IowaCougar]

And out come the wolves. I agree with kitic and Gunk. JA is who he is. He's not going to beat teams for you, but generally he isn't going to hurt BYU a lot either. Just a role guy who knows what his role is. Every year we go through this. Of course it would be nice to have 5 guys on the court who could score 20 every night, but you guys need to quite fantasizing and start enjoying BYU basketball. I'm proud of 10-1 from a group of guys who could easily be 7-4 or 6-5 right now.

Hear Hear!

[BPcougs]

He doesnt need to score 20 a night, just not be so bad that its like playing 5 on 4 out there. You put JA on the free throw line and you might as well hand the ball to the other team and get it over with. I cant wait until Hartsock is feeling better and Collinsworth gets his game back from the layoff.

[Italics]

it's obvious by the posts in this thread that many of you don't understand the EXTREME importance of having a solid big guy. When you have players as poor as Anderson playing at the 5 - it makes the ENTIRE team suffer.

And there aren't many 5's in Division I basketball who are as bad as Anderson. I watch as much if not more basketball than most of you - I've seen the best teams in the nation and some of the worst. Even the worst have bigs who have good muscle mass and KNOW HOW TO FINISH. If they are open, the ball goes in the hoop - it gets thrown down or laid in. They catch the ball. Anderson can't even execute on the basic fundamentals. He's awful folks, not "bad." He is pathetically awful.

[SpiffCoug]

And you fail to realize that the team does not and will not rely on Anderson. You seem to think like he should be our knight in shining armor that will solidify our low post presence. Get over it. He's not and he's not going to be. There's a reason he has played double digit minutes once in the last seven games.

You think Rose doesn't know Anderson is a poor player? Anderson CAN be solid at times in limited roles and situations in limited minutes on the defensive end.

BYU has not nor will rely on him on the offensive end. Get over it. He's not good. You aren't going to get from Anderson what you think we need to be getting, so maybe you should stop asking him. He can't do the things you want him to do, so having him try and do things he can't do is a very poor strategy indeed.

Will BYU be "elite" without a solid low-post presence? Probably not. And since we don't have that this year, I guess we're not going to be elite. So you have two choices, Italics:
1) Stop following BYU this year and every year until we get a solid big guy - a big guy that 344 D1 teams have, with BYU being the lone exception - so that we can then start to get to that level you think they should be.

2) Enjoy the 2010-2011 BYU team for what it is.

[BPcougs]

Is it to much to ask for JA to catch the ball when its passed to him?

[Gunk]

Never said I thought Anderson was a great/good player. Just think all the harshness directed at him is a little out of place. The kid averages 9.5 min a game. He played 4 min against UCLA and for some reason he's getting more than his fair share of criticism.

Want to point fingers...point them at Emery or Jimmer.

Jimmer played 34 min. Jimmer went 2 for 8 from behind the arc! He's shooting 10% less than he did last season from behind the arc. Against UCLA he shot just above 50 percent going 8 for 15. How many layups did he miss, though? I counted at least 3. Not to mention the 4th foul he picked up at a key moment in the game. He had 7 of the teams' 19 turnovers and only 1 assist! Jimmer did a horrible job of handling and moving the ball around and his defense was horrible.

Emery, played 32 min. He shot 1 for 5 from 3-point land (25%!). This season Emery is shooting 43% compared to 48% last season. He had 1 assist! Just one assist from a guard!

Player with the best shooting percentage on the team right now: Davies at 61%. Jimmer needs to be feeding that guy the ball every other possession. Instead, he and Rose prefer to pass it around the top. And that's why we lost. Not because of Anderson's 4 min.

[Gunk]

Is it to much to ask for JA to catch the ball when its passed to him?

Davies bobbles them too on occasion.

[AZman]

Here is my personal and unbiased assessment of Big James' game (who happens to be personal friend of mine): Offensive game: D+, Defensive game: B-. Everyone tearing him to shreds on here face the facts: he is on the team to play minutes when guys are in foul trouble, to give starters a breather and to play D. His primary role on offense is setting screens. Although his O leaves one desiring for more, having a big body out there is going to alter more inside shots than the average 6-2 guard will, and that is his role. I know he practices his heart out, many times I see him exhausted. I know he needs to beef up and trust me, I know he tries to but somehow he burns off any weight gain. He is a D1 athlete and I respect him for that, especially since I don't think too many people on this message board are/have been D1 athletes. Lets just hope the minutes he gives the team help Davies and Hartsock to stay injury free and out of foul trouble. Will BYU go far in the tourney with our 3 post players, we can only hope.

[Italics]

And you fail to realize that the team does not and will not rely on Anderson. You seem to think like he should be our knight in shining armor that will solidify our low post presence. Get over it. He's not and he's not going to be. There's a reason he has played double digit minutes once in the last seven games.

You think Rose doesn't know Anderson is a poor player? Anderson CAN be solid at times in limited roles and situations in limited minutes on the defensive end.

Wrong, wrong, and more wrong.

4 minutes, 7 minutes, 9 minutes, 11 minutes... it's all PLENTY enough time to do enough damage to cause your team the loss in the long run. Missed shots, freethrows, turnovers, etc. can lead to as much as 6-point turnarounds.

I'm yet to see Anderson be solid in a game. The games that you'd reference him as being "solid" in would reveal horrible stats. The stats line doesn't tell everything, but they tell a lot when they are consistently low.

And where did anyone ask for more from Anderson? Just pointing out the obvious - he is not Division I material. Period. There is no defending it. A few posters mentioned that and YOU along with others are the the ones who can't "accept it for what it is." I accepted it a long time ago.

[Italics]

Never said I thought Anderson was a great/good player. Just think all the harshness directed at him is a little out of place. The kid averages 9.5 min a game. He played 4 min against UCLA and for some reason he's getting more than his fair share of criticism.

Want to point fingers...point them at Emery or Jimmer.

Jimmer played 34 min. Jimmer went 2 for 8 from behind the arc! He's shooting 10% less than he did last season from behind the arc. Against UCLA he shot just above 50 percent going 8 for 15. How many layups did he miss, though? I counted at least 3. Not to mention the 4th foul he picked up at a key moment in the game. He had 7 of the teams' 19 turnovers and only 1 assist! Jimmer did a horrible job of handling and moving the ball around and his defense was horrible.

Emery, played 32 min. He shot 1 for 5 from 3-point land (25%!). This season Emery is shooting 43% compared to 48% last season. He had 1 assist! Just one assist from a guard!

Player with the best shooting percentage on the team right now: Davies at 61%. Jimmer needs to be feeding that guy the ball every other possession. Instead, he and Rose prefer to pass it around the top. And that's why we lost. Not because of Anderson's 4 min.

Were you able to actually watch the game on TV?
I was able to finally watch it and I'll tell you this: blaming Jimmer for the loss is, to put it lightly, not smart. I really hope you were just trying to make a point when you said that.
Jimmer actually distributed the ball well I thought - the failure of his teammates to turn his dishes into points is not his problem. He did have a few ugly turnovers, but a few of them were just poor bounces and poor luck in my opinion. I've played PG my whole life - and let me tell you, it's hard to not turn the ball over when you can't trust your teammates to score, or when everyone is simply standing around.

But simply going off the "eye test" - you can't even begin to compare Anderson's job with Fredette's job in the UCLA game. You're really grasping at straws now...

I agree that Emery's offensive production was horrible in the UCLA game, but he is at least able to make up for it with excellent defense. Our big guys, however, got walked over the entire game. They looked hopeless.