Light practice, heavy film session for Cougs
Obviously, it’s getting tougher for BYU to run it’s four-guard offense against MWC teams that have the Cougars nailed down in the film room.
Stop BYU’s fast-break transition game by getting offensive rebounds or successful scoring and you force Dave Rose into a half court game and the Cougs stall out and stop.
It’s happened in the last two losses to New Mexico and UNLV. The answer, of course, is when opponents start switching and heavily cover BYU’s wing players and point guard, the best opportunity for success is to score from the post.
Trouble with that, the Cougars haven’t gone to the post enough to get either Chris Miles or Gavin McGregor a ton of confidence. In Wednesday’s loss to the Rebels, Miles really struggled and looked bad making decisions, handling the ball and delivering passes.
Steve Alford and Lon Kruger have drawn up the blueprint on how to defeat the Cougars. Now it’s Rose’s turn to deliver a counter attack and build back up the confidence of his team who were shaken to the core in Wednesday loss on their own home court.
It doesn’t get any easier Saturday when San Diego State comes to town. The Aztecs are more than capable of doing what UNLV and UNM did; and they are also capable of being a no show if the Cougars get on a run. Trouble is, everyone in the league has now smelled a little blood in the water with the Cougars.
On Thursday, Rose had a long film session with his players but practice was light. Archie Rose’s hand will be evaluated and he may play Saturday.
Here’s how I see the key issues:
-Rein in Jonathan Tavernari without destroying his confidence.
-Build up Miles and McGregor so there is at least the threat of an inside game.
-Regain the inside out passing from Miles that worked so successfully before league play.
-Better defensive rebounding.
-Much better selection of shots, especially from Tavernari.
-Somebody (Noah Hartsock) has got to step up and pressure Tavernari for playing time so he can feel the nudge and pressure.
-Lee Cummard is getting taken out of games by good coaches, Rose has to make them pay and he hasn’t exactly excelled at that the past five days.
You’d only have to have been in the interview room after the UNLV game to understand how frustrating this is for Cummard. This is his last hurrah, he season he returned to school for to make some kind of charge. He looked as frustrated as I’ve ever seen him immediately after the game, after going scoreless in the second half.
Bottom line: This mid-season slide isn’t unusual for Rose teams, he usually rebounds strong. The coming weeks will tell us just how good of a Big Man staff the Cougars have. If we start seeing some double digit scoring out of that post position, Rose and his assistants will have weathered a big part of the challenge; if not, the frustration seen in Cummard will not be over and this is a team headed for the NIT.