BYU vs ISU Highlight Video

BYU vs OSU Highlight Video

A Great Start for the Cougars

We knew ahead of time that Ole Miss, even though they might not have a lot of great skill players, had a lot of athletes.  The football-mad south produces more athletes than you can imagine.  The South was the last place the NFL expanded to, and the last place integration happened.  This meant a lot of interest in high school football, and a lot of tradition was born then.  We still see the results of that tradition today in the numerous recruits that come out of the South.  

It took awhile for the Cougars to adjust to the speed they saw on Saturday.  If speed was the only factor that counted, the Cougars would have been in trouble.  Luckily for BYU, strength, coaching, and maturity also count.  And that maturity finally came into play in the fourth quarter.  

The Cougars were down 13-0.  They had driven the ball a lot, but just couldn’t find a way to score.  To me, it just looked like another Holiday Bowl opportunity.  The Cougars have a tradition of wild comebacks, and they were “only” thirteen points down.  

A lot of times, in a noisy stadium on the road, down by thirteen midway through the fourth quarter, teams hang their heads.  As we all know, it takes a lot more than thirteen points to make a team with this tradition hang their heads.  We all know the rest.  Jake Heaps finally got the team into the end zone, and Kyle Van Noy would make the play of the game on Mississippi’s ensuing posssession.  

The crowd, which had been raucous and was having a great time at the Cougars’ expense, was suddenly quiet.  And the Cougars would leave with an opening victory over the Rebels.  

The Good:

Despite receivers having trouble getting open, Jake Heaps kept his poise and was able to will the team into the end zone.  He ended up completing 24 of 38 for 225 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.  

Kyle Van Noy made the play of the game when he picked up Zack Stoudt’s fumble and took it in for the winning score, but the defense played very well all day, limiting Ole Miss to 208 yards in the air and 64 on the ground.  

Ross Apo finally showed some of the speed and elusiveness that helped him get into the lineup with a touchdown catch for BYU’s first score.  

The Bad:

Too little speed.  The receivers had problems getting open against a second-division SEC team.  The difference between a team like Ole Miss and a Southern team like Texas is the skill level.  Ole Miss has a lot of athletes that are “projects.”  Texas has a lot of players who “project” to the NFL.  The Cougars will have to recruit more speed in the coming years to beat teams that have both speed and skill, such as Texas, or any top division SEC team, on a regular basis.  

Sealing the deal.  The Cougars left 10 points on the field in the second half, and wasted drives of 36, 24, and 30 yards in the first half.  They got away with it this time, but it won’t work against upper-echelon competition.  

The Ugly:  Absolutely nothing.  A win is a win, especially on the road against the SEC.  We’ll call the first three quarters a learning experience, and the fourth quarter a masterpiece.  

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.”

BYU vs Gonzaga Highlights

BYU Blasts Past Wofford And Gonzaga

BYU In The Sweet 16

 

What a great weekend! BYU did what they had to do this weekend.  They got the requisite amount of points from Jimmer Fredette, but they also got key contributions from the rest of the team.  This is very important to moving forward from the emotional distress caused by the national media coverage of honor code violations.

The Wofford game on Thursday wasn’t much of a yardstick.  The Cougars got a lot of contributions from players other than Fredette, but this was Wofford they were playing.  Yes, Charles Abouo, Noah Hartsock, and Logan Magnusson scored in double figures, notching ten points each.  Yes, Kyle Collinsworth nabbed eleven rebounds.

But you couldn’t help feeling that this was just a superior team taking care of business against a plucky but outclassed team that wouldn’t have finished over .500 in the MWC.

The game against Gonzaga, though, was a major eye-opener.  For the Cougars to win against top-notch competition, it is going to have to go like it did Saturday.  Here is the scenario:

Jimmer Fredette hits his first few shots.  The other team keys on him, and this opens up the floor for everyone else.  And everyone else comes through.  Then the floor is opened back up for Fredette, who administers the finishing touches.

This is how it has to happen, and this is how it happened in Saturday.  In a way, it was what happened against Wofford, but against much better competition.

Once again, three other players scored in double figures.  Noah Hartsock scored thirteen, and demoralized Gonzaga with three for three shooting from beyond the three-point line.  Jackson Emery scored sixteen points, and every one he scored seemed to be crucial.  Stephen Rogers came off the bench to score ten.  And Kyle Collingsworth picked up seven rebounds to go with six points.

Most of all, Jimmer Fredette only took 23 shots to score 29 points and added five free throws for a total of 34.  Fredette scored 1.26 points for every shot from the field.  When he is over a point per shot, BYU is usually going to win.

Moving on…

 

Now, the Cougars go to New Orleans to play Florida.  If they beat Florida, they get the winner of Butler vs Wisconsin.  Florida is a winnable game, but it will be no cakewalk.  The Gators may be far-removed from their two consecutive National Championships, but their team is full of players who were once elite recruits and has finally found its own identity.

The Gators who won the National Championship had a core that was tall and athletic.  They turned out to be so talented that they almost made winning look easy.  The current Gators are built in the mold of head coach Billy Donovan.  They don’t have a roster full of first round NBA draft picks, but they are a very gutty, scrappy team.  They play with passion and a lot of “basketball sense.”  The Cougars can win this game, but they are going to have to play as well as they did against Gonzaga on Saturday.  Anything less will result in an early exit.

If they beat Florida, cheer for Butler to beat Wisconsin.  Wisconsin is a matchup nightmare for BYU, as Pitt would have been.  They are too big and strong inside, and would exploit the lighter and smaller Cougars.  They are also a very patient team that runs a lot of clock on offense, plays stifling defense, and can easily disrupt the tempo of a team that relies on outside shooting.

Wisconsin wins ugly, but they win.  And their style of game fits NCAA Tournament play extremely well.  Butler, on the other hand, is a matchup that the Cougars can win.  They don’t do anything great, but do a lot well.  They are a well-balanced team, but they don’t present the almost-insurmountable matchup problem that Wisconsin would.

 

What BYU Must Do Against Florida

 

The Florida game is going to have to be almost a carbon copy of the Gonzaga game for the Cougars to win.  Fredette will need to hit a few early and hope that Florida doubles him or plays a zone that focuses on him.  This will open up the floor for other players.

Then, Hartsock will have to hit from outside and Emery will have to slash his way to the basket once the court is opened up. Kyle Collinsworth will also have to continue to rebound as well as he has, and another great set of contributions from the bench players would be a major bonus.

Fredette will once again have to average more than one point per shot.  He should get to the line against Florida, who like to play pretty tight on defense, but the points per shot statistic will be more important than his total number of points.

 

Will BYU’s Depth affect their Performance this week?

 

So far, Kyle Collinsworth has played admirably in place of Brandon Davies.  However, there isn’t anyone to fill his slot on the bench as well as he did.  This could be a problem, but may not.  So far, the Cougars have done just fine.

If this was a tournament like most conference tournaments, where you play three or four games in a row with no rest days, the effect of Davies’ suspension on team depth could be a major detriment, as it may have been in the MWC tournament.  It is very possible that BYU simply “ran out of gas” against SDSU while playing their third game in three days.

In the NCAA Tournament, though, you play two games a week with a day’s rest in between.  There is plenty of time to rest and heal nagging injuries.  Also, everyone is running on adrenaline in both games, and fatigue doesn’t really seem to factor in as much as it would in conference tournaments.

 

A Quick Prediction…

 

The Cougars will beat Florida in New Orleans on a last-second shot by, who else, Jimmer Fredette.  If Butler beats Wisconsin, BYU will be able to get by them and into the Final Four.  If they have to play Wisconsin, though, it will probably be a long flight back to Provo.

Random Thoughts From A Long Weekend

Jake Heaps Sinks Football in the Net

BYU vs New Mexico 2010

BYU Quarterback Jake Heaps Post Washington Win

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