CougarCorner

Here is my analysis of the team and season so far as we (hopefully) get ready for conference play. If you want blue goggles we are the best team in the world that will beat Gonzaga by 40 points please head over to BYU Sports Nation instead.

I've said this before and I'll continue to do so: number of wins mean nothing if we don't get into the tournament. So, how is our tournament resume looking? The most telling thing is zero Quadrant 1 games period. You can try to schedule tough opponents, but you can't predict or control how good of a season that they will have. Those first 3 games all against tournament teams from last year isn't looking that great right now. Oregon is only just getting back into the Quad 2 territory. So BYU has a net ranking of #30 which is not bad, but in general you need to be top 35 to be safe to get an at large bid. We really cannot have any slip ups. Any Q3/4 losses will most likely push us out of the top 35 unless we have multiple Q1 wins to counter them. The #29 NET team Providence is 5-0 in Q1 games. #31 Chattanooga has a Q1 win. But we don't.
Next, on to the team stats and my evaluation as to how each player lived up to my expectations.
Coach Pope Grade: B. I'm giving him a solid B. I know everybody loves him and I don't want him to leave. I'm also a harsh grader and this is against my expectations. I have super high expectations for Pope. He is good, but I have criticisms. The two big man injuries aren't his fault. But letting Lee and Lowell leave and only entering the season with 4 big men, one of them injury prone, and two of them freshman, has to be on the coach. Why did we target guards with our transfers? Lucas has been decent, but surely one of our other dozen guards could (or should) have stepped up. Knight is nothing special. Did no bigs want to come? Were no bigs available? I know recruiting is hit or miss and it takes time to develop players, but I think too many teams are leaning way too heavy into the transfer portal. I understand going for a guy that was really good at a smaller school and is looking for a step up or a player at a top school that was riding the pine and wants more minutes. But I don't get using the transfer portal on players that have just been floating around from team to team to team. If they haven't shown anything from their first two stops what is going to make it different this time? Maybe they are the issue and not the schools?

Also, what is up with our lame offensive scheme? Left - right - left - right - left - right - shoot a 3. Rinse and repeat. Ball rarely gets passed into the paint. Even with few big men that is necessary to reset the offense or to at least keep the other team guessing. Zero called plays for Barcello. Zero off the ball screens being set. Our screens are still as bad as they were in the Rose era. I kid you not that I know how to set a better screen than 90% of the players that I've seen over the past 15 years at BYU. I'm actually surprised that we don't get called for a moving screen about every other possession.

Barcello PER/G: 18.5; PER/Min: 0.60; Grade: A-. If he had not come back where would we be?? He is shooting very efficiently so it's hard to knock him for anything. My only criticism is that he needs a little Jimmer in him to just take over a game and to shoot more. How did he not score 10 points against a division 2 team?

Lucas PER/G: 13.0; PER/Min: 0.44; Grade: B. He's our best ball handler and a true PG which is nice because Barcello is not those things. But I just can't help but wonder if another one of our two dozen guards could have stepped up into this role and we could have gotten a big man in the transfer portal. With Barcello being shadowed he is going to have to hit open shots.

Traore PER/G: 12.4; PER/Min: 0.61; Grade: A. The BYU version of Charles Barkley with similar freshman stats to Childs. If we could have him playing at the PF spot with a true C his stats would be even better. The only positive to the injuries is that Traore is getting more minutes and he's shining.

George PER/G: 9.2; PER/Min: 0.43; Grade: B-. I knew last season he was very raw and I honestly didn't know how much he would develop. At times he shows flashes of what he can do, but he's just so inconsistent. He's probably our best player at being able to create his own shot and beat his guy one on one to the basket. But he doesn't do it nearly often enough.

Johnson PER/G: 8.4; PER/Min: 0.38; Grade: B. He can shoot the ball better than Knell and is a pretty good on the ball defender, so why isn't he starting over him? He has more minutes than Knell, but hasn't started a single game. Trust the coach I guess. But I like what I see from Johnson and want to see some more.

Baxter PER/G: 8.3; PER/Min: 0.61; Grade: A-. He was doing excellent in his limited minutes and boy do we miss him. He seemed to have lost his outside shot, but he was filling his role so well. So sad.

Knight PER/G: 7.5; PER/Min: 0.36; Grade: C-. He just hasn't done much and hasn't shot the ball very well at all. I heard one of his interviews where he talked about being a scorer on his previous teams. Sorry, but I don't see any of that here. Another missed portal transfer.

Knell PER/G: 7.3; PER/Min: 0.37; Grade: C. His PER is below Knight whom I am not impressed with so why is he starting? He's supposed to be the best 3 point shooter on the team (ok, maybe behind Barcello), but I'm not seeing it this season. I know he said that he wanted to work on becoming more than just a 3 point shooter. But I'm not seeing those other areas. Maybe he should focus on just being a really good 3 point shooter. No shame in that.

Lohner PER/G: 6.9; PER/Min: 0.29; Grade: D+. We're short on bigs, but Pope has to drop Lohner from the starting 5. He started a lot of games last season and kind of grew into it. But this year he is just floundering. I said this last season and I have to wonder if Pope promised him x number of minutes or that he'd be a starter in order to get him to flip his commitment and maybe Lohner will transfer if he doesn't get them. But he flat out isn't playing well. I understand that he shoots really well during practice and that he stays later after practice to continue to shoot on his own. But it's not showing up in the games and that's what counts. Pope has to find a way to sort him out or give his starts and minutes to someone else.

Others I'm not going to rate the other players because they really haven't gotten enough game time for that.

Stewart PER/G: 1.9; PER/Min: 0.52. He has lots of potential and some great ups. I'm excited to see what he can do next season.

Erickson PER/G: 1.8; PER/Min: 0.20. I'm not really sure why he's been getting so many minutes lately. He has a bit of swagger to him that I like and maybe he just needs more minutes to find his groove, but I have noticed on several occasions that he will be wide open and his teammates won't pass the ball to him. They just don't trust him for some reason...

Ally Atiki PER/G: 1.3; PER/Min: 0.16. He's just not ready. He should be riding the pine and learning from Harward. There is some potential there, but he's got the worst PER/Min out of everybody.

Hansen / Brown - N/A.

Erickson has past up shots. Not confident to take them. He has started to shoot now and is 57% from the 3. Keep it up.

byufan4ever wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:56 am Lohner PER/G: 6.9; PER/Min: 0.29; Grade: D+. We're short on bigs, but Pope has to drop Lohner from the starting 5. He started a lot of games last season and kind of grew into it. But this year he is just floundering. I said this last season and I have to wonder if Pope promised him x number of minutes or that he'd be a starter in order to get him to flip his commitment and maybe Lohner will transfer if he doesn't get them. But he flat out isn't playing well. I understand that he shoots really well during practice and that he stays later after practice to continue to shoot on his own. But it's not showing up in the games and that's what counts. Pope has to find a way to sort him out or give his starts and minutes to someone else.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pl ... ner-1.html

Lohner has struggled to finish plays but we would be losing more games without his rebounding.

Thank you byufanforever. This is a very good analysis. I looked at the roster. There are 10 guards and 6 forwards with the injured Harward listed as a center. I don't think we need that many guards. 3 of them may not have seen the court yet. I agree with you about letting Lee and Lowell leave. Lee was 6'9", 240 lbs and could bang inside. He would be very valuable now!

I was told that Conner Harding left on his own. He is 3rd in scoring and rebounding for UVU.

Qman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 11:29 am

byufan4ever wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:56 am Lohner PER/G: 6.9; PER/Min: 0.29; Grade: D+. We're short on bigs, but Pope has to drop Lohner from the starting 5. He started a lot of games last season and kind of grew into it. But this year he is just floundering. I said this last season and I have to wonder if Pope promised him x number of minutes or that he'd be a starter in order to get him to flip his commitment and maybe Lohner will transfer if he doesn't get them. But he flat out isn't playing well. I understand that he shoots really well during practice and that he stays later after practice to continue to shoot on his own. But it's not showing up in the games and that's what counts. Pope has to find a way to sort him out or give his starts and minutes to someone else.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pl ... ner-1.html

Lohner has struggled to finish plays but we would be losing more games without his rebounding.

Rebounding included he has a very very poor Player Efficiency Rating. Sometimes dropping someone can give them a kick in the pants they need to correct things. Continuing to start someone who is playing horrible is just a mystery to me.

nuk13 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 8:52 pm Thank you byufanforever. This is a very good analysis. I looked at the roster. There are 10 guards and 6 forwards with the injured Harward listed as a center. I don't think we need that many guards. 3 of them may not have seen the court yet. I agree with you about letting Lee and Lowell leave. Lee was 6'9", 240 lbs and could bang inside. He would be very valuable now!

I was told then Conner Harding left on his own. He is 3rd in scoring and rebounding for UVU.

Pope might not have pushed out Harding, but he also wasn't able to convince him to stay.