Can BYU avoid showing its one big wart?
Saturday’s matchup with Utah is an interesting case for Dave Rose.
No question Luke Nevill has consistently played very well against the Cougars. BYU is the one opponent he has “sold out” for throughout his years as a college basketball players. Nevill gets the BYU-Utah game.
But Nevill isn’t BYU’s biggest challenge. In big games, another issue has taken root.
To win big games the Cougars must overcome the one wart that’s been common in all their losses this season. In order to take care of business in the Marriott Center and keep hopes for a title alive there is one common denominator they have to avoid. BYU has to avoid those scoring droughts, those pockets of empty possessions that plagued the Cougars after holding leads over ASU, Wake Forest, UNLV (twice) and the Utes in the Huntsman Center. After falling behind New Mexico and battling to tie the game in Albuquerque, it struck again – the flat out failure to score during a key stretch. These droughts go on for four or five minutes and have been a pit for Rose. Fix that and BYU doesn’t lose another game in the regular season or in the MWC tournament.
In interesting aspect of this game. The past four or five games, it is evident the scouting report on BYU is to get physical with Lee Cummard. Word is that if you grab, tackle, push, and must plain muscle him, he gets frustrated and can’t do his magic. New Mexico tried this tactic and we’ve seen it in recent games. The physical play test officials and what they will allow, and then adjustments are made according to how the game is called. But Hack-a-Lee is a plan. It is commonly seen when he makes his move to go behind screens and get shots. I don’t know if Utah will follow suit. On BYU’s home court, there are generally a lot more worries by visitors than to try and play that game with Cummard, it can backfire if you don’t have more than one defender who can absorb the foul count.
Rose has not shown his hand as to whether he will monster down on Nevill with a double team or if play him straight up and let him score 25-plus to 30 like he did in the last meeting. Nevill dumping in 30 isn’t going to do the Cougars in. But Shaun Green and others popping in treys, in addition to a big Neville game, will.
A few tidbits from around the country.
Since he left ASU for BYU, he’s been at Colorado and now Auburn. Jeff Grimes is now the offensive line coach for the Tigers and he explains his philosophy – something he is very good at teaching as shown in this interview.
Interesting that Fresno State hired a BYU graduate assistant as their defensive backfield coach. The main thing the Bulldogs want is to get their DBs to turn around and look for the ball. FSU ranked 118 out of 119 teams in the FBS in interceptions last year. Read the story here.
And finally, it looks like the Wyoming Cowboys are copying the recipe used so successfully by BYU and Utah over the years and are recruiting more Polynesian players. With the hire of Mike Fanoga, the Cowboys are making some inroads, although it is hard to envision a happy Islander living in Laramie. In this article, Fanoga mentions recruit Trendt Marsom, a safety from Hawaii, who he says could have come to BYU. I don’t remember BYU recruiting him that hard. Check it out here.