Cougars Basketball: Still a Work in Progress

We’ll start with the good.  The Cougars came home from Blacksburg, VA with an exciting 70-68 road victory over an ACC team, the Virginia Tech Hokies.  The Cougars shot only 22-66 for 33.3 percent from the field, and 5-24 for 20.8 percent from the three point line, but went 21-24 for 87.5 percent from the free throw line.  Most of that came from Noah Hartsock, who went 7-8, and Brandon Davies, who went 11-12.  Hartock would score 22 total points and Davies would total 17 for the game.

Brock Zylstra would only hit one shot the entire game, but it was a great one: a three-pointer with 26.5 seconds left to put the Cougars up 69-66.  The 69^th point would turn out to be the winner, as Tech would eventually miss a long, well-guarded three-pointer at the buzzer. 

Even though Virginia Tech is only 1-5 in the ACC, the victory should help the Cougars with the NCAA Tournament committee at the end of the season.  The victory, though, showed both strengths and weaknesses.  When the Cougars can get the ball inside, they can get to the line.  The Cougars got the ball inside enough against Virginia Tech to squeak out a win, but the shooting from outside was not good enough to win most of the time.  This would come back to take a sizable chunk out of their flesh against St Mary’s.

The Cougars are a better team than many anticipated, but this year, they probably aren’t going to catch St Mary’s.  The Cougars did a lot of things right against St Mary’s.  They played very good defense for much of the game, forcing 24 turnovers.  St Mary’s shot 24-43 for 55.8 percent.  When you consider that two players combined to go 12-16 for 75 percent, that means the rest of the team shot 12-27 for 44 percent, which usually doesn’t get the job done.

Unfortunately, the Cougars only shot 25-61 for 41 percent.  The worst part was that they were only 2-13 from three point range.  This killed any chance the Cougars had at getting the momentum to sustain any long runs or get back into the game.  We don’t want to belabor the obvious, but they definitely miss having a shooter who can consistently “fill it up” from the perimeter. 

On the good side, Noah Hartsock, Matt Carlino, and Brandon Davies scored 15, 15, and 14 respectively.  This week’s game with Gonzaga is the most important game at this juncture of the season.  The Cougars have to win this game to keep a share of third place, pull to within a game of second place, and have at least a mathematical possibility of catching St Mary’s for the regular season conference title. 

A loss to Gonzaga would not end the Cougars’ chances, but it would make things difficult.  At this point, it looks like the Cougars will have to make a very good showing, not only the rest of the year, but in the WCC Tournament, to get to the Tournament.  A victory over Gonzaga would go a long way toward giving the Cougars some “breathing room.” 

Jerry Palm of CBS, who is usually quite accurate, has flip-flopped the Cougars from “last four in” to “first four out” status on an almost weekly basis this season.  The Cougars need to do something to get off of both “lists.”  The last seven regular season games on the schedule include two against Gonzaga.  They will probably meet Gonzaga in the WCC Tournament, too.  It is mandatory that the Cougars win at least once out of those three games.  Three losses to Gonzaga would ruin the Cougars’ chances of making it this year.  It would be “easiest” to get one victory out of the way ASAP.  That would be tomorrow. 

When the WCC Tournament comes, anything can happen.  Thus, there is always a chance that the Cougars can win that tournament, and take their tournament berth out of the hands of the selection committee.  This is going to require much better outside shooting than we saw this week, though. 

As St Mary’s showed, it is a lot easier to defend the inside when nobody on the other team is a threat to shoot well from outside.  The Cougars need to come out of what is now being called their “slump” from outside, and loosen things up for the inside. 

The Cougars usually don’t get a bunch of four and five stars who are between 6-10 and 7-2.  Brandon Davies is a warrior, but even he can’t be expected to shoulder the entire load of the Cougar offense if other teams can bring extra players to “help” on him without paying for it elsewhere on the floor.

The bottom line: somebody is going to have to step up and be “the man” outside.  It doesn’t have to be the same person every game, and it doesn’t have to be Jimmer-like, but someone has to hit enough shots from the perimeter, preferably from the three-point line, to take the pressure off of Davies and Hartsock. 

Hopefully, it starts against Gonzaga.

 

Quick Signing Day Notes

 

All across the country, National Signing Day mania is in full force.  All of the major outlets are dedicating shows and staffs to cover it from 9am until midnight.  In Provo, though, it isn’t like that.  As in basketball, the Cougars usually don’t pull a roster full of four and five star athletes.  Usually, there aren’t even that many three-star athletes.  Then, we can’t really get too excited about anyone, because we don’t know when they will be going on their missions.

It almost makes following NSD a moot point, but we will give a few quick notes here.

Three quarterbacks have signed their LOI’s.  Tanner Mangum, four star 2012 recruit, is coming in with the most press.  However, transfer Ammon Olsen, former Utah 5A MVP, is back from a mission to Mexico City, enrolled, and officially signed, with three years of eligibility left.  Taysom Hill, also coming back from a mission, and the most highly-recruited athlete in Idaho in 2008, has signed his LOI.  Hill originally signed with Stanford and Jim Harbaugh, who seems to know a little about quarterbacks.

If all goes well, Riley Nelson will have a great, injury-free senior year, and the competition behind him will be fierce.  Mangum should go on his mission this year or next year, leaving Olsen and Hill as the main “recruits” from the “2012 class.”  

Moving Along Nicely in the Post-Jimmer Era

When we last discussed the basketball team, there were a lot more questions than answers.  Let’s take a look at some of those questions.

Who is going to take over for Jimmer Fredette?

The obvious answer is that nobody on the team is another Jimmer Fredette.  Players of his caliber only come along once or twice in most teams’ histories.  When you take a deeper look, though, the answer is that everybody has to take over.  Everybody has to elevate their games, and a lot of teamwork is required. 

The Cougars have done a great job so far.  Four players are averaging double figures, and Brock Zylstra is chipping in with 9 ppg, with Stephen Rogers contributing 7.7 ppg.  We will have more to say about those in double figures later in this post.

I guess the best way to answer this question is that teamwork and defense are going to take over for Jimmer Fredette.  That is absolutely not a knock on last year’s team, either.  When you have a talent like Fredette, you have to let him shine.  Conversely, when a talent like Fredette leaves, it’s time for everybody to elevate their games and pick up the slack.  In basketball, as in football, the best way to do this is to pick it up on the defensive end. 

Should BYU even bother to show up this year?

Not if they had listened to the national press.  I doubt that many would have predicted the Cougars to even go .500 this year.  I wonder that those who predicted gloom and doom for the Cougars think now?  They aren’t getting much national TV time or publicity at this point, but the Cougar are 17-5 overall, and 6-2 in conference play.  In other words, the Cougars are playing a lot better than most national writers predicted them to, and the total collapse predicted by many just hasn’t happened.

We’ve all seen the pattern over and over.  For whatever reason, the Cougars are usually the last team to get any respect from the national press.  The football contract with ESPN has helped matters greatly, but the Cougars are still seen as an afterthought when upper-echelon teams are being discussed.  Only the stratospheric play of Jimmer Fredette got the Cougars any respect at all last year. 

Even so, most writers saw the Cougars as a one-man team, and at least one national sports personality found a way to predict them losing every game in the tournament before someone was finally right.  This year, Jerry Palm, who usually does a very good job at CBS, still has the Cougars as one of his last four teams to make it into the tournament. 

Palm usually gets a lot of his predictions right, especially toward the end of the season.  This is bothersome, because he apparently is brilliant at figuring out all of the politics that go into choosing the field.  Is a 17-5 BYU team really only deserving of a play-in game?  In the preseason coaches’ poll, the Cougars got exactly one vote as a top 25 team.  Even at 17-5, they only have one vote in this week’s poll. 

So, who has really stepped it up this season?

Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies have been the top scorers this year, and both have contributed a lot of leadership, besides their points.  Hartsock not only scored twenty against Pepperdine, but blocked three shots.  Along the way, he became the 43^rd player in Cougar history to score over 1,000 points.  In the loss to Loyola-Marymount, Hartsock had a career-high 28 points. 

Davies could have sulked after last year.  He could have transferred.  He could have come in with a bad attitude.  Instead, he has worked his tail off.  Davies scored 29 against Pepperdine, with 15-18 shooting from the free throw line, and contributed two blocks. 

From the outside, Matt Carlino, Charles Abouo are both shooting .444, and have combined for 41 percent from outside of the three-point line.   Fifth starter Zylstra and sixth man Rogers have combined to shoot .483, and .409 from three-point range. 

As we alluded to at the beginning, defense is where the Cougars have really shined this year.  While we all like to see scoring, the other half of the game is to not let the opponent score.  The Cougars have allowed only 65.1 points per game this year, while scoring 80. 

CBS, in whatever metric they use, has the Cougars as the number twelve team in the country in total defense.  While they are ranked around 100 in points allowed, this doesn’t take a lot of things into consideration, such as competition or the pace of the game in your part of the country. 

We like the scoring margin stat, in which the Cougars are 14^th in the country right now with a 14.9 point margin.  Conference leader St Mary’s, who are having a monster season so far, are in sixth place with a 16.9 margin.  While the Cougars are in third place in the WCC right now, we see them as the second-best team in the league.  A victory over St Mary’s in the WCC tournament, though, could change everything. 

And this brings us to our next topic:

So, where is this team headed?

The next three games should tell a lot.  Virginia Tech is first.  On paper, they look OK, with a 12-7 record, but they have pretty much lost to everyone they’ve played who is any good, and fattened their record with tomato cans.  They play in the ACC, which is one of the two toughest conferences in college basketball, but they are beatable.  If the Cougars beat VT, it will certainly help the respect level in the national press.

The next two conference games, though, will tell a lot.  It is essential that the Cougars at least win one of the next two home games against St Mary’s and Gonzaga.  If they win both, it proves that the Cougars are as good as anyone in the league.  If they lose both, they are going to have to work hard to get into the NCAA draw.  

Cougar Basketball Recovers From Loss With Victory Over Buffalo And Santa Barbara

After the disappointment of losing to sixth-ranked Baylor by three points on Saturday, the Cougars could have expected to start a bit slow.  However, they didn’t expect to start by falling behind 14-3 to Buffalo in the Mariott Center.  Luckily, though, the Cougars still had more than enough to finish off Buffalo for a 93-78 win. 

Brock Zylstra scored 26 points and Anson Winder came off the bench for 20 points, giving both players career highs.  Noah Hartsock was in foul trouble in a scoreless first half, but came back to score 16 points in the second half.  Freshman point guard Matt Carlino continued to be a pleasant surprise, chipping in with 10 points and 11 assists.  He also added seven rebounds, missing a triple-double by three. 

And just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, the Cougars went up against the Santa Barbara Gauchos and won 89-75. Even without Jimmer, the gaurds are stepping up and shot 0.400 from the 3 PT line.  Thank you Brandon Davies for stepping up and making plays for 17 points!

The Cougars are now 10-3, with a visit coming up from UC San Marcos before the conference schedule begins on December 29 on the road at St Mary’s.  We see no reason why the cougars shouldn’t be 11-3 before hitting the road, which is an acceptable start and one that should help ensure that the Cougars make the NCAA tournament in their first year of the post-Jimmer era. Especially if we consider which teams the Cougars lost to.

We don’t think USU would beat the Cougars in a rematch, even though USU has a decent team.  The other two losses were to then #11 Wisconsin and #7 undefeated Baylor. The WCC has some good basketball teams to challenge the Cougars but even without the Jimmer, the team has shown it can compete at a much higher level than expected.

Outsiders didn’t give the Cougars much of a chance at getting back into the tournament this year.  From writers to oddsmakers, nobody seems to be giving the Cougars much credit.  They see the loss of Jimmer as an impossible obstacle.  Luckily, coach Dave Rose hasn’t told the Cougars that they can’t win. 

When a team has a star like Jimmer Fredette, the tendency, even for teams with a great work ethic, is to stand around and watch the star go to work.  And really, it makes sense.  When you have a player like Jimmer on your team, he is the person you want taking most of your shots.  Sometimes, though, other talented players are overlooked. 

This year, the Cougars will have “star by committee.”  Nobody is going to come close to what Jimmer did last year, but there will be some pleasant surprises.  Sometimes a balanced team that can beat you in more ways than one can outperform a team with a transcendent star.  We aren’t predicting a Final Four for this team, but we see no reason they can’t make the Sweet Sixteen this season. 

We plan on having fun watching.

It Always Feels Great to Beat the Utes

The Post-Jimmer Era Begins

Actually, the post-Jimmer era has already begun, but it has been met by resounding indifference everywhere outside of Provo.  At the time of this writing, the Cougars are 5-2, with victories over BYU-Hawaii, Longwood, Prairie View A&M, NAU, and Nevada, with losses to USU and Wisconsin.  

Really, it’s difficult to get a handle on this team so far.  They have squashed tomato cans, and lost to one rival and one elite team.  There are two things we do know: that Dave Rose is still Dave Rose and that the Cougars are going to have to lean heavily on Noah Hartsock, Brandon Davies, and Charles Abuou, with Anson Winder, Brock Zylstra rounding out the starting lineup.  There will be a lot of contributions from the bench this year, with Demarcus Harrison, Stephen Rogers, and Craig Cusick looking like the three main options.  

At first glance, the 73-56 loss to Wisconsin looks like a terrible game for the Cougars, but Wisconsin does that to a lot of ranked teams during the course of the season.  They play basketball like football, and they are one of the few teams who are consistently allowed to play what is known in the trade as “Duke Defense” without being called for fouls.  The result is that they push teams up and down the floor with impunity, play at their own, slower tempo, and make a lot of decent teams look really bad on the scoreboard.  

The Cougars learned from the Wisconsin game, and thanks to the seniors, are now stressing toughness in practice, getting ready for NAU.  Unfortunately, the practices have been so spirited that Noah Hartsock (ankle) and Stephen Rogers (knee) might not be available for the NAU game.  Chris Collingsworth isn’t ready to come back quite yet, so it could be a bit of a struggle against NAU.

Losing a player who scores as many points as Jimmer Fredette did is bad enough, but when that player was also your point guard, it is even tougher.  Jimmer scored as many points last year as many starting backcourts do.  So far, nobody has really picked up the slack yet.  The scoring is coming from Hartsock (16.8), Abouo (13.3), and Davies (12.0) right now, who are scoring 56.3 percent of the Cougars’ 74.8 points per game.  Stephen Rogers is contributing another 9.2 per game.  

As of yet, nobody in the backcourt has really emerged to do much more than run the offense and contribute the occasional bucket.  Until someone does, the Cougars will continue to be a work in progress.

Luckily, the schedule won’t be as demanding as it could.  The move to the West Coast Conference should work out well, and the Cougars can develop during the season without having to face a lot of elite teams.  They will face some solid teams, but non-conference games against Utah, Oregon, and Virginia Tech look much more demanding than most of their conference games.

If things go well, the backcourt will improve due to more experience, and somebody will emerge as a consistent, double-figure scorer.  Brock Zylstra is the best bet, but so far, he has failed to match his 17.3 point average from the trip to Greece.  In the meantime, anyone watching tape of last year’s Cougars will now be defending a post-oriented team instead of one that launched up (and made) mostly outside shots.  

Football Update – No Vacation in Hawaii

Coach Mendenhall is making sure the Cougars don’t fall victim to “island paralysis syndrome.”  This is what happens to many teams who go to Hawaii, decide they are on vacation, and look like it when they step on the field at Aloha Stadium.  The Cougars get Thursday to enjoy themselves, but will work hard on Friday, and be fully ready for the game on Saturday.  

It is important that the Cougars keep their focus and bring home a ninth win on Saturday.  There are still a lot of conference invitations yet to go out, and the Cougars need to make themselves look as attractive as possible, no matter how the conference realignments work out in the end.  

If there are superconferences with a playoff to determine a true National Champion, the Cougars need to be attractive enough to get an invitation to one of them.  On the other hand, if the BCS continues on its present route, the Cougars need to continue to look good on a yearly basis for the pollsters.

In a perfect world, the polls and the computers would always get it right.  The best teams would end up at the top, and every team would to to the bowl it deserves.  College football, though, is far from perfect.  At the top, where the decisions are made, it is driven solely by money, and the most attractive teams get the most attractive post-season games.

In a way, the rankings are a lot like the world golf rankings, but without the points.  Even though every year is a new year and every team is a new team due to the fact that students graduate, teams are often judged on their past as well as their present.  

So far, 2011 has been a good first year as an independent for the Cougars.  Other than the Utah debacle, they have stayed in every game, and the latter part of the year has been entertaining for the most part.  Even the TCU game wasn’t the blowout many in the national media expected.   

It is essential that the Cougars finish strong.  A victory over Hawaii would put the Cougars at 9-3, setting them up for a possible 10-win season.  In the eyes of the national media, the tenth win would be huge.  It gives reporters a double-digit number to look at when assessing the team’s value.  

Bronco Mendenhall knows this.  The players know it.  And they know that a tenth win is not possible if they don’t take care of business and get their ninth win on Saturday night.  

We are looking for a great performance.  There may be a few underthrown balls in the low altitude and heavy air at the beginning, but Jake Heaps should adjust quite well after a couple of drives, and the Cougars should take care of business on the Island for their ninth win.

How Does the Move to the WCC Affect the Cougars’ Basketball Team?

For this year, expect a slight downward trend.  With the exception of maybe Duke, Kentucky, or a few other basketball factories, there isn’t a team in the country that could lose Jimmer Fredette and not feel it on the court the following year.  We will preview BYU in greater depth later, but for today, we would like to take a look at the WCC and see what the new competition looks like.  We will do so in order of their finish in the 2010-11 conference standings.

Saint Mary’s Gaels

St Mary’s may be the best team you never heard of.  Coach Randy Bennett is an “up and comer,” mentioned for both the Utah and Missouri jobs when they opened up this year.  He was selected as an assistant for the US 19-under team currently playing in the FIBA U19 World Championship in Latvia.

For 2011, they finished 25-9 overall and 11-3 in the WCC, with four players in double figures.  Their best player, sort of their “Jimmer lite,” was Mickey McConnell, and he led the team with  16.4 points and 6.1 assists per game.  McConnell graduated this year, and will be difficult to replace.  We project a split with this team.

Gonzaga Zags

Actually, they are the Gonzaga Bulldogs, but they are more commonly referred to as the Zags.  This is the team that most opponents “love to hate.”  There may be teams that have gotten more publicity for less performance, but we can’t really think of any right now.  When the Cougars play the Zags on ESPN, some of you may notice that the announcers think there is only one team on the floor.  A hint: it won’t be the Cougars.

As for their on-court performance, you may remember them as the team the Cougars beat 89-67 in the NCAA Tournament to end their season.

You may also remember that many picked Gonzaga to win this game by “neutralizing Jimmer Fredette.”  They finished 25-10 and 11-3, and are probably glad Jimmer is gone.

The biggest obstacle for BYU, though, is that Gonzaga lost only one player.  That player was Steven Gray, who averaged 14.8 points and 3.9 assists.  They return everyone else, including a couple of 7-footers in Robert Sacre, who was their bright spot in the loss to BYU, and Kelly Olnyk.

This is by far the scariest team in the conference this year, and Rivals has them ranked at 17 in their preseason projections.

Gonzaga is the only team in the conference with the potential to sweep the Cougars, and then pick up the rare trifecta in the conference tournament.  Also, they will have revenge on their minds for the tournament game.  Instant rivalry game, anyone?

University of San Francisco Dons

The Dons finished 19-15 and 10-4 last year.  The bad news for USF is that they graduated their biggest player, 6-10 center Moustapha Diarra, and have one 6-9 player on their roster as their tallest player.  The good news is that Diarra didn’t score in double figures, was a mediocre rebounder, and the only thing he led the team in was blocks with 0.9 per game.  This is a decent team, but not a great one.  This could be a split or the Cougars could sweep.

Santa Clara Broncos

The Broncos finished 24-14 and 8-6.  They graduate three seniors, but the largest contributor only averaged 5.5 points per game.  They return senior guard Kevin Foster, who averaged 20.2 points per game, and their next five top scorers.  This could be a very good team.  This could be a split or the Broncos could sweep.

Portland Pilots

The Pilots finished 20-12 and 7-7, but they are losing three starters and four players overall to graduation.  The top three graduating contributors are 6-10, 6-9, and 6-8.  This looks like a BYU sweep.

Pepperdine Waves

The Waves finished 12-21 and 5-9.  They lose two starters who combined for 20.2 points.  Another BYU sweep.

Loyola Marymount Lions

They finished 11-21 and 2-12.  It doesn’t matter who is coming back.  BYU sweep.

San Diego Toreros

They finished 6-24 and 2-12.  Not only will BYU sweep, but they will get to spend a nice, warm winter day in San Diego, too.

The New Kids on the Block

We are projecting an 11-5 record for the Cougars’ first season in the WCC.  Replacing Jimmer Fredette is going to be difficult.

Four star recruit Damarcus Harrison is a nice shooting guard, and at 6-4, should be able to get his shots off as a freshman.  But nobody can expect him to replace Jimmer, nor should they.  Jackson Emery is lost to graduation, too, and with him his 12.9 points.  That means the Cougars lost their two leading scorers for a total of 41.4 points a game.  Dave Rose is a very good coach, and the Cougars are a very mature team, but the Cougars have a very difficult job to do in the coming season.

The transfer of 6-7 Josh Sharp from Utah to BYU after a redshirt year and a two-year mission should help, and the Cougars are bringing back a lot of solid but not flashy players.  Hopefully, Brandon Davies takes care of business and gets back on the roster.  Noah Hartsock shows the ability to step up and pick up some of the scoring slack.  Charles Abouo hit a few nice shots in the tournament, and the Collingsworth brothers are good for some inside banging, no matter which one is on the floor.

It should be a fun year waiting to see who will emerge as the new person the team turns to in “crunch time.”  Our guess is that there won’t be a dominant player on the team this year, but that it will be one of “those” teams that is difficult to defend against because there are so many players on the floor who can put the ball in the net.

Congratulations: Jimmer is on his Way to Sacramento

When the Kings traded down to ten, three spots ahead of the Jazz, it didn’t look good for Jimmer to remain in Utah for the next few years.  Then, when the Jazz went large with Enes Kanter at number three, there was a glimmer of hope, and maybe a chance that the Jazz knew something that the rest of the world didn’t yet.

Jimmer Fredette is Looking Better Every Day

Going into the draft, Jimmer Fredette heard a lot of negative things about his game.  The main criticisms were that he isn’t athletic enough to finish down low in the NBA, and that he can’t play NBA defense.  His height was also brought into question, and one very popular scouting service rated him as having athletic ability that is “average at best” and possessing “poor lateral quickness.”

Goodbye, Jimmer. Hello, Jimmer?

The NCAA Tournament didn’t end well, but it really only does for one team in the entire country.  While Jimmer and his Cougars lost in the Sweet Sixteen, a picture of a bruised, bandaged, and fatigued, but unbowed Fredette walking off the court may be the most iconic image of the tourmanent.

The big question is, where does Jimmer Fredette go from here?  Will he be a boom or a bust in the NBA?  How will his talent translate to the next level?  Will the Jazz draft him?  If not, where will he go?  Let’s take a look at these questions.

Will Jimmer Fredette be a boom or a bust in the NBA?

Some “experts” don’t think he has much of a chance in the NBA.  Here’s what those “experts” think:

Strengths:

Jimmer Fredette is a great shooter.  His range is more than sufficient for the NBA 3-point line, but he can also hit midrange jumpers and can penetrate the lane.  He can not only spot up and shoot off the dribble, but he can also hit shots that most players are told not to take.

Also, he is a natural leader.  He is a player who is equally adept at putting the entire game on his shoulders or involving his teammates, depending on what is working and what is needed.

In addition, Fredette is a very good passer.  He can pass well enough to be a point guard in the NBA, and can use the threat of his shot to open up other players for shots.

Weaknesses:

The main concern at the next level is Jimmer’s defense.  If he stayed and watched Butler beat Florida in the Elite Eight game, he would have noticed how everyone on Butler moved their feet on defense.  This is something that Jimmer needs to do more.  He is seen as having slow feet, and as a potential liability on defense.  He will have to improve in this department if he wants to start in the NBA.

His turnover rate is too high.  His adjusted turnover rate was 23rd highest in the NCAA, and his assist to turnover ratio was only 1.22.  These will need to improve, too.

Overall prospects:

According to the gurus, Jimmer Fredette is a mid to late-first rounder who will have to land on the right team.  He can be a solid player, but won’t dominate as he did in college.  In other words, they see him as a possible bust with an upside of being a solid player but not a star.

How will Jimmer’s talent translate to the next level?

To fully answer this question, we must first address the “elephant in the room.”  What is the elephant in the room?  Jimmer Fredette has different ethnicity than the stereotypical basketball player.  It’s unsettling that stereotypes still exist today, but the bottom line here is that even scouts who do this for a living fall prey to the “black men are natural athletes, white men can’t jump” mentality.

There’s really no way to sugarcoat this: recruiting gurus, who should know better, are using the “slow, white guy” stereotype in their assessment of Jimmer Fredette.  It’s subtle, and I’m not saying by any stretch of the imagination that it is intentional, but it is still there.  People in Utah are used to this because they saw John Stockton play possibly the best basketball in the country night after night, but never get full credit for just how good he was.

So, let’s pretend for a moment that everybody on the court is gray.  They are all generic players, with no cultural or racial differences: they are just players.  I don’t need to do this exercise myself, because I see all players as “cut from the same cloth,” but I will pretend.

When I see them as all gray, and I look at Fredette, I see a player who has the tools to make it at the next level.  I see a player who can shoot, pass, and drive.  I see a player who has the mental toughness to succeed at any level.  Do I see a player who isn’t a finished product yet?  Of course.  I see him as a player who needs to learn to move his feet on defense.  But do I see him as unable to learn to move his feet better?  No.

Will the Jazz draft Jimmer Fredette?

I think the Jazz will take Fredette if they get the chance to.  But there is a problem with that.  Every year we see a high-scoring player raked over the coals by scouting services, only to get taken as a high pick.  The Cavs have two lottery as do the Jazz.  Assuming that neither the Cavs’  nor the Jazz’ wins one of the top three slots,  the Cavs’ second pick will be before the Jazz second pick.  Will the Jazz use their top pick for Jimmer?

The Cavs are looking for star power.  They desperately need a “feel-good” pick to replace Lebron James.  Looking at the board for this year, there really isn’t anyone who is a guaranteed game-changer, even at #1.  Cavs’ owner Dan Gilbert is establishing a reputation as a very rich and very loose cannon who isn’t afraid to take a chance.

What does this mean?  I think the Jazz would take Jimmer Fredette in a heartbeat.  They know that Jimmer can play, and they know it would be great for the franchise to take a star who happened to play at BYU.

Goodbye or Hello?

“With the eighth selection in the 2011 NBA Draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers take Jimmer Fredette.”

Still a Very Good Season

Florida played their best game of the year

BYU lost to the Florida Gators for a few reasons.  First of all, the Gators played their best game of the year.  They started the game hot, and, sadly, they finished the game hot, going 5 of 7 from the field in overtime.  Four of their players scored between 16 and 19 points.  The balance was too much for the Cougars.

Vernon Macklin was hot inside, while Chandler Parsons looked like the Mr Basketball he was in high school.  Alex Tyus played the best game he played in his four years at Florida.  Guards Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker, while they missed a lot of shots, still made just enough to keep BYU from shading inside.

Florida made sure they didn’t leave anything on the floor against the Cougars.  This was evidenced by their terrible performance two nights later against Butler.  They expended so much energy against BYU that they had nothing left for Butler.  For the Cougars, it was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Cougars ran out of gas

This happened for a few reasons.  First of all, Jimmer Fredette was hurt and had an off-night.  Fredette, like most great shooters, uses his legs to shoot.  When one calf is hurt, as his was, it throws everything off.  It’s harder to get balanced force coming from both sides of the body.  And once you miss a few shots, you spend the rest of the night trying to compensate.  Often, as on Thursday, the right adjustment never kicks in.

Secondly, we all knew that the suspension of Brandon Davies was going to hurt the Cougars eventually.  “Eventually” happened on Thursday night.  BYU missed his height underneath, and he may have been able to put the clamps on Alex Tyus.

Also, as we thought may happen, his absence affected team depth.  Florida had too many athletes and too many chiseled bodies to throw in and out of this game.  They wore BYU down and BYU didn’t have enough energy to finish the game when they needed to.

Officiating played a huge role in this game

First and foremost, the officiating was fair.  They called it the same way for both teams on both ends of the court.  The problem for the Cougars was that they called it like Stanley Cup Hockey.  When you are the team that is prone to attrition while the other team has plenty of depth, the last thing you want to see is an officiating crew that “lets them play.”

It’s nothing against the officials; they did a fine job.  It was simply unfortunate “luck of the draw” that the Cougars played an extremely physical game against the worst possible opponent at the worst possible time.

“Bruised and battered” is not how you want your star basketball player described at the end of the game, but Jimmer Fredette sustained contact on pretty much every play.  Everyone across the country has seen the “stock” picture of Fredette with the bandage on his chin.  Once again, it was called the same for both teams, but it simply wore out the injured Fredette.

What now?

This senior-laden team was the best edition of the Cougars in history, and Coach Rose is going to have to find some replacements pretty fast, that is, if the school manages to keep him from the greedy hands of bigger-budget universities.  Jimmer Fredette, Jackson Emery, and Logan Magnusson have played their last games in a Cougar uniform, and Brandon Davies may or may not make it back.

We know Noah Hartsock, Charles Abouo, Kyle Collinsworth, and Stephen Rogers can play, but who is going to step up and be the go-to guy in Jimmer’s absence?  There is a lot of height returning from missions the next two years, but the Cougars need to find a guard, wing forward, or both who can fill the void left by the graduation of Fredette and Emery.

The move to the WCC is probably coming at the right time.  Gonzaga will  be looking for revenge, and the Cougars will probably be undermanned next season.  St Mary’s is showing signs of being a perennial tournament contender, but there are a lot of teams in the WCC that the Cougars should be able to beat.

Looking back

It was definitely a very good year.  I am tempted to call it great, but they needed a Final Four berth to qualify for greatness.

Most of all, though, BYU exhibited class all year.  A lesser man than Jimmer Fredette would have become arrogant over all of the attention he received.  A lesser school than BYU would have ignored Brandon Davies’ transgressions until the tournament was over.  And a lesser coach than Dave Rose would have played “Hack-a-Mack” on Vernon Macklin in the last three minutes of the Florida game.

But Fredette remained humble.  And BYU honored their Honor Code.  And Dave Rose refused to throw a 20-something kid under the bus to win a basketball game.

When you have that much class, the losses don’t bother you for long.

Maybe it was a great year, after all.

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