HB Arnett’s
COUGAR SPORTSLINE
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West 800 South –
Vol. 32,
Issue 38 – May 1, 2012
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DAVE AND HIS DAIRY…THE CULLING
OF THE HERD
When it comes to good management of a dairy farm, I yield to those who
have actually done it. When it comes to BYU basketball, I also yield to Dave
Rose and his dairy herd management style.
Make no mistake about it, like a good dairy man; Dave Rose just
finished culling his herd
In the dairy business, you can’t afford to keep cows that
aren’t producing. That’s why good dairy farm managers keep
extensive daily records of each of their cows. They know how much milk they are
producing and the butter fat content of that milk by individual cow.
When a cow quits producing, it is off to the hamburger factory
Mastitis and Misses
Dairy farmers can’t afford to keep cows that have mastitis and
Dave Rose can’t afford to keep intact a guard line that misses wide open
shots.
As they say in academia, publish or perish.
As they say in the West Coast Conference and in NCAA post season play,
get a guard line and be a contender, not a pretender.
At BYU and every other NCAA D-1 program, by NCAA mandate, you only have
13 basketball stalls in the barn that you can feed with an athletic
scholarship. You can keep others in the herd without scholarship, but they have
to fend and feed for themselves.
BYU and Rose found a couple of stall openings this spring by not
renewing the scholarship of Nick Martineau and by taking Damarcus
Harrison off the milking line…not because of mastitis, but because of
missionary service.
We all knew it
Dave Rose knew it. We knew it and so did you. BYU didn’t have a
guard line good enough to get to the top of the WCC last season.
Now, not only does Dave Rose “Got Milk”, he also now has
“Got a Guard line” good enough to win and compete for a
championship in the WCC and beyond.
The addition of returned missionary Tyler Haws, incoming freshman Cory
Calvert and juco transfer Raul Delgado, will now give Rose what he just
didn’t have last year. He will have two proven outside shooters and
defenders and an incoming freshman who was the 5A player of the year in
Calvert originally was going to serve an LDS mission before enrolling
in school, but after mulling and culling, Rose asked Calvert to come and play a
year at BYU before embarking on his missionary service.
Calvert’s coming strengthens our previous paragraph: Dave Rose
knew it. We knew it and so did you. BYU didn’t have a guard line good
enough to get to the top of the WCC last season.
Dairy farmers have
Insurance
He also has some insurance.
Rose and his staff also signed and added 6-8 forward Agustin Ambrosino,
an Argentinean from
It may turn out that Abrosino is a fabulous player, but for now and
until he proves he is fabulous, in my opinion, he is mostly insurance.
With the graduation of Noah Hartsock and Charles Abouo, Rose lost
“Got Milk” players he could go to.
He still has Chris Collinsworth and Stephen Rogers coming back, but not
only are they not go-to players, Rose isn’t sure if they have got knees
that will allow them to even see the court again.
Ambrosino is protection and insurance.
If neither Rogers nor Collinsworth can get their knees back, they will
cull themselves from BYU’s basketball and bovine herd.
Even if the NCAA comes through, but Collinsworth’s knee
never responds to full health, look for BYU to be allowed by the NCAA to use
his basketball scholarship for another player while still keeping Collinsworth
on a non-basketball grant-in-aid.
Here’s hoping that both Collinsworth and Rogers can get their
knee issues behind them. Dave Rose will need them next year.
Haws a Serious Upgrade
While Ambrosino is an unknown at this level of play, Tyler Haws
certainly isn’t.
He proved as a freshman that he can play. He should pick up where he left
off after returning from two years on an LDS mission in the
Nothing against Brock Zylstra. He was a gritty, give-it-all-he-had kind
of player for Dave Rose last season.
But if you don’t think Tyler Haws will be a serious upgrade for
next season, you have probably spent too much time in the barn sniffing the
ancillary aromas that come with the dairy business.
In the dairy business and in basketball, you need to produce cream if
you want to rise to the top. Last year, BYU’s guard line was not only
non-fat, they were a non factor.
That should change dramatically this coming season.
CAN MITT ROMNEY TAKE IT TO THE HOOP?
I like to keep my politics and preferences private, but my platform is simple.
Term limits for all elected officials from the national scene all the way down
through the state and local levels.
I am not bright enough to know if a Mormon can make it to the White
House. Heck, I don’t even know if Jabari Parker, another Mormon, will
even make it to
I hope for the best in both cases, but what I do know is that a Mormon
has already said he is coming to
There is no dispute that Parker is probably the best player in the
country and BYU is still in the hunt for his services. The chances are still
slim, but they still exist.
While Parker is slim, Nick Emery is a slam dunk. The 6-2 guard is
picking up on the AAU scene this spring right where he left off last summer.
He is now the focus of the national recruiting scene by writers and
scouts. His latest outing last weekend in
Utah Reign is basically the roster of Lone Peak HS. T.J. Haws, another
BYU commit also played, but was hampered by an ankle injury.
Emery is the real deal and already drawing “Jimmer”
comparisons by national writers.
Parker would be great, but as they say, BYU already has a bird in hand
that could be better than Parker in the recruiting bush.
FANNING THE FOOTBALL FLAMES
Football and the
First Amendment?…By now most of you have heard of
Michael Wadsworth. He is a missionary serving in
It’s a simple story except for the fact that he played football
for the
He told
Regardless, the kid is enrolling at BYU and paying his own way and will
walk on to play football for a year this fall.
After
Here's rule 13.1.1.3.2.1, Exception, Official Religious Mission:
"An institution shall not contact a student-athlete who has begun service
on an official religious mission without obtaining permission from the
institution from which the student-athlete withdrew prior to beginning his or
her mission if the student-
athlete signed a National Letter of Intent (NLI) and attended the institution
(with which he or she signed the NLI) as a full-time student. If such a
student-athlete has completed his or her official religious mission and does
not enroll full time in a collegiate institution within one calendar year of
completion of the mission, an institution may contact the student-athlete
without obtaining permission from the first institution." (Adopted: 1/17/09
effective 8/1/09, Revised: 4/2/10).
Much has been written locally about this story. Here is what we would
like to see happen.
I am not a lawyer, but wonder if evoking the first amendment of the
constitution wouldn’t be grounds for litigation against the NCAA and
It’s a reach, but if a kid wants to play football for the only
college team sponsored by his religious institution, is his right of religious
freedom being blocked?
After all, BYU and Bronco Mendenhall claim that their program is
different and provides spiritual nourishment for players, especially for Mormon
players, that no other program can provide. If a member of the LDS faith wants
to religiously participate in such activities sponsored by his religion that no
other football program can purportedly offer, are his religious freedoms being
curtailed or impinged?
Deep pockets and a game attorney would make for an interesting scenario
and may make the Riley Nelson rule go away.
Or at least it would make for a nice episode of Matlock or Law and
Order.
DEARTH OF BYU
DEFENSIVE LINEMAN IN NFL CONTINUES…One of the raps
on BYU football that opposing coaches use against the Cougars in recruiting is
that BYU can’t produce NFL defensive linemen.
It’s been years since the Cougars have had a defensive lineman
selected in the NFL draft. We were sure that this year would be different with
Hebron Fangupo, the transfer from USC.
Most services had him projected as a lower rounds draft pick. It
didn’t happen. Fangupo and Matt Reynolds, an offensive lineman, were
BYU’s best chances in the NFL draft. Neither was selected. Nobody else
from BYU was either.
Fangupo signed as a free agent with the Houston Texans and Reynolds
signed as a free agent with the Carolina Panthers.
Two other Cougars signed as free agents. McKay Jacobson signed with the
Philadelphia Eagles and Terence Brown signed with the Miami Dolphins.
Jacobson was a receiver and Brown an offensive lineman.
BYU’s next chance at a defensive lineman being selected in the
NFL draft will be next year. Ezekial “Ziggy” Ansah, will likely be
only a spot player for BYU this season. He will be used as an outside
linebacker and a defensive end, primarily in pass rush situations.
He has an NFL build and NFL athletic ability. Some team should be
willing to take a chance on him despite his lack of playing experience.
BCS Access without
a C is just BS…The power brokers of college football concluded
their meetings last week after discussing ways to improve post season football.
They have done away with the automatic qualifying for certain leagues.
There will more than likely be a four team playoff system after bowl games that
will decide the national championship.
It all sounds good, but the selection process for the teams that will
participate in the playoff is still in the hands of the original power brokers.
In reality, it is still our opinion that nothing changes. The money
will still be managed by the big boys of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 and
ACC.
They aren’t going to share that money with the other leagues and
independents such as BYU.
As long as computers are in the mix, we maintain that they will be
programmed to favor strength of schedule. That means that the SEC will always
be at the top of the heap. Those that control the money and TV contracts,
control the selection process.
That fact that BYU, as an independent, didn’t have a seat at
these meetings isn’t a good thing. You could argue that the were
represented by Notre Dame, the ultimate independent, but Notre Dame is still
more interested in their own situation more than BYU’s.
BYU, at the very least will have to go undefeated to even be in the
post season playoff talk. Strength of schedule or lack thereof will always be a
millstone around the Cougars neck.
That doesn’t make BYU football less entertaining or less
compelling, it is just a fact of life in the current pecking order of college football.
Spring Sports
Volleyball…BYU
volleyball is done. The Cougars closed out their season without reaching their
goal of another national championship. They didn’t even garner an invite
to the Final Four of the sport.
The Cougars finished their season with a 24-7 record and had a chance
to make a Final Four appearance but that chance went a way with a four set loss
to Stanford last week in the MPSF semi finals in
Baseball…Baseball
is a game of percentages. Over the long run, you can count on those
percentages. For BYU baseball, the percentages indicate one thing.
The Cougars are a mediocre baseball program.
After 12 plus years at the helm of BYU baseball, Vance Law is currently
393-338, which is a .537 winning percentage.
This season the Cougars are 18-17 and 7-5 in WCC play.
There are a lot of variables in baseball, but when it comes to
coaching, this we do know. Gary Pullins was let go by BYU as its baseball coach
12 years ago because administrators thought a coaching chance would make the
program more productive.
Pullins was let go with a 23 year record of 913-462-6 for a .663
winning percentage.
Again, baseball is a game of percentages and the percentages have not
improved, but gone down since Pullins was replaced by Law.
We know all about a cold-weather program and we know all about pitching
or lack of it consistently at BYU.
There are a lot of variables to debate, but percentages, especially
win-loss percentages are black and white.
At BYU baseball, they are also not currently good.