HB Arnett’s

HB Arnett’s

801 372 - 0819

1391 West 800 South – Orem, Utah 84058

Vol. 33, Issue 34 – March 18, 2013

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Faces UW

BYU Part of NIT Picking

For BYU basketball fans over the last half a decade, the NIT basically stood for the Nobody Interested Tournament.

Now that the NCAA said they were not interested in BYU playing in their tournament this year, suddenly the NIT means much for to Cougar fans. What it means is a first round game against the Washington Huskies in Provo on Tuesday, March 19. The game is set for a 7:30 tipoff and will be televised by ESPN.

As a No. 3 seed, the Cougars, should they whip Washington, would host a second round game in Provo at a date to be determined, most likely either on Thursday or Friday.

That contest would be against the winner of the Tennessee/Mercer matchup. That game will be played in Knoxville. Tennessee is actually the No. 2 seed in BYU’s sub bracket and as a No. 2 seed, UT would have hosted a potential second-round NIT game, but the Vols’ arena will be unavailable due to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament being played there.

Here is the official BYU take on the invite: "We're very excited to be playing in the NIT," BYU head coach Dave Rose said. "It's a great opportunity for our team to keep playing and finish the season strong. This will be so good for our younger players to gain postseason tournament experience but I'm especially excited that our seniors get to play another game in the Marriott Center."

No. 3 seed BYU (21-11) will host the No. 6 seed Washington Huskies (18-15) on Tuesday in the Marriott Center at 7:30 p.m. MDT. The game will be televised on ESPN and broadcast live on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM and 1160 AM. The winner of Tuesday’s game will face the winner of No. 2 seed Tennessee and No. 7 seed Mercer in the second round.

Washington finished the regular season tied for sixth in the Pac-12 with a 9-9 record. The Huskies lost to Oregon in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals on Friday. This will be the 19th meeting between BYU and Washington with the Huskies holding a 10-8 advantage in the series. The last meeting between the schools was on Dec. 9, 1997, in Provo. Washington won 83-68.

"Washington has a great basketball tradition," Rose said. "They have a nationally respected coach in Lorenzo Romar and compete in one of the top leagues in the country. Our staff and players are really looking forward to Tuesday."

Rose has guided the Cougars to the postseason in each of his eight seasons at the helm. In his first season he led BYU to the 2006 NIT and from 2007 to 2012, Rose and the Cougars earned at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. BYU won NCAA Tournament games in three-straight seasons from 2010 to 2012, the longest streak of seasons with a postseason win in program history.

This will mark BYU’s 11th appearance in the NIT. The Cougars have a 12-8 record in the NIT, including titles in 1951 and 1966. In addition to the 2006 appearance, BYU's prior years playing in the NIT were 1951, 1953, 1954, 1966, 1982, 1986, 1994, 2000 and 2002.

My Take

Here is my take on Washington and the rest of the NIT field: The Huskies best player is C.J. Wilcox, the son of former Cougar basketball player Craig Wilcox. The younger Wilcox played his high school basketball at Pleasant Grove HS in Utah County. BYU tried to recruit him, but never really had a shot at this kid.

Wilcox, a guard, played the most minutes this season and was the leading scorer for his team with 16.7 points per outing.

As BYU basketball fans there are two ways to look at this NIT invitation. It will either just prolong the late season fade and agony produced by this team, or it could be a fresh start and a nice jump start on what hopefully will be a much better season and team next year.

If this was Vegas and I had free vouchers to use, I would bet on the prolongation of disappointment. This team is just too flawed to have any realistic expectations of a nice NIT run coming to fruition. Yes, I know that the game is in Provo, but past history of NIT games indicate that a crowd of about 7,000 can be expected and home hasn’t been as hospitable to BYU as in past seasons.

In case you forgot, BYU was just 2-3 in their last five games this season in the Marriott Center.

For those more optimistic than me and want to look ahead, here is the NIT bracket.

BYU ties to other NIT teams.

Washington…C.J. Wilcox and Tyler Haws played many rivalry games against each other in high school. In addition, both the Cougars and Huskies were also rans in the Jabari Parker recruiting sweepstakes. Washington made the list of top ten choices and BYU made the top five list.

Kentucky…Mark Pope, the BYU basketball assistant, played at both Washington and Kentucky. He is still a Wildcat kind of guy as this video would seem to indicate. Pope starts at the 1:00 mark.

Florida State and St. Josephs…Both played in the early season Coaches against Cancer affair in Brooklyn. Besides BYU, Notre Dame was also there. St. Joe’s also played in Provo on the opening weekend of the Marriott Center in 1971. They brought with them Mike Bantam, the NBA player. BYU brought Kresimer Cosic and the Cougars won by 1 point, 73-72.

Arizona State…It took a couple of years, but the Sun Devils finally found a post presence for Pac 12 play in 7-2 junior center Jordan Bachynski. He is an LDS returned missionary that was recruited by ASU and BYU while he was on his mission to Florida. UConn was also involved. According to reports from the Bachynski side of the issue, BYU didn’t really make an impression in their recruitment of him. On the other side of the coin, BYU took Jake Toolson away from the Sun Devils who made an offer early last fall for the 6-5 senior to be at Highland HS in Gilbert, Arizona. Toolson has committed to play for Dave Rose and the Cougars.

Baylor…The Bears belted BYU big time in Waco this season. In a return match in the NIT, if it happens, the Bears would belt BYU again. That’s because they have Pierre Jackson, a lightning quick guard. Those kind of back court players have always and still cause the Cougars serious defensive problems.

Denver…The Pioneers are coached by former Air Force and Princeton coach Joe Scott. While at the Academy, Scott gave BYU major problems with his back door and back cutting offenses.

Maryland…The Terps did to Duke something that BYU has only done once; Beat the Blue Devils. BYU beat Duke in 1952 and lost to them in Hawaii in 1992. The Cougars also lost Jabari Parker to the Blue Devils. Maryland actually beat Duke last week in a basketball game in the ACC.

Virginia…Tony Bennett, the coach at UVA, previously coached at Washington State. He has recruiting connections to that state. One of his best players on this team is Joe Harris, a 6-6 guard from Chelan, WA. People have told me that Harris had some interest in BYU in spite of not being LDS, but that the Cougars didn’t really pursue him hard. Bennett also went hard in trying to recruit Kyle Collinsworth to enroll at Charlottesville. BYU won that recruiting battle.

SPEAKING OF COLLINSWORTH

Dave Rose told a Cougar Club luncheon last week that Kyle Collinsworth would be the lead guard on the Cougar basketball team next season.

You can counter that he didn’t say point guard, but anyway you want to cut it, Collinsworth will have his hands on the ball more than anybody else next season. Yes that includes current point guard Matt Carlino.

The sophomore to be will be returning from his LDS mission to Russia Vladivostok in May.

In case you forgot about Collinsworth, he started 27 of 36 games for BYU as a freshman. He averaged just over 25 minutes per game. If you want my opinion on him, go back a few issues to read that I said that he will be BYU’s version of Matthew Dellavedova.

He can play and will make a huge difference on the upside for Dave Rose next season. Rose is trying to stay low key, but he knows what he has in Collinsworth.

Other new players on the roster will include Eric Mika, Luke Worthington and Skyler Halford. Also a possibility could be Sai Tummala.

You know my assessment of Collinsworth, now you can make your own assessments on these other players by watching the videos below.

You can also watch Halford and Tummala live via streaming video in the NJCAA national tournament beginning this Tuesday. Salt Lake Community College was award an at large berth in the 24 team tournament.

SLCC, Halford and Tummala kick off play Tuesday at 1 pm Mountain Time against Eastern Oklahoma. The Bruins of SLCC were seeded 11^th in the tourney.

Click here for the brackets and info on watching every NJCAA Tournament game via streaming video.

HINE COMES OUT OF HIDING THIS SPRING

I first saw Adam Timo as a skinny 16-year old 6-0, 170 pound running back. He was the starting tailback as a sophomore for Snow Canyon HS in Santa Clara, Utah.

He committed to play football and high jump for BYU after that sophomore year. Since then 5 plus years have elapsed and Timo changed his surname to Hine, played quarterback and middle linebacker his junior and senior seasons, served an LDS mission to Panama, came back redshirted as a freshman, injured his leg as a redshirt freshman last season and basically disappeared from the radar.

He is back and out of hiding after a nice two weeks of spring practice where he is now in the mix as a running back in the new BYU up tempo offense.

Here is what I remember about Timo/Hine. As a sophomore at Snow Canyon, he was the premier tailback and being used in the I formation.

As a sophomore, in the pre game build up to a game against Logan HS, Mike Favero, the head coach at Logan had high praise for Timo/Hine. He said that Timo reminded him of Marcus Allen when the former USC and Oakland Raider great prepped in San Diego. Favero, before coming to Logan, coached in the San Diego area.

After a spectacular sophomore season, Snow College changed coaches and offenses. They also graduated a boat load of upper classmen. The new coach went to a spread offense but had no quarterback to run it. He moved Hine to that spot and he was basically the total offense that season having to run for his life with very little offensive line support in front of him. Hine also was used as a middle linebacker both as a junior and senior.

Five years later, Timo is now Hine and out of hiding. He is now 6-1, 205 pounds and looking like Favero knew what he was talking about a half a decade ago. The Marcus Allen comparison may be a stretch, but I will say that he has the Allen ability to lean forward and gain yards after being hit.

There is little to no footage or film of Hine at BYU, and also very little from his junior and senior seasons at Snow College. But I am including two videos I have found.

The first is from Timo/Hine’s junior season when he was the sole offense for Snow Canyon as a quarterback.

The second is from the sophomore season when Timo/Hine was being used as a true tailback 7 yards back behind the quarterback. The results speak for themselves.

Again, Hine has done nothing in a game at BYU yet, but for long time readers, you may remember that I had him touted coming out of high school as a future big time player as a running back for BYU.

I am 5 years late, but I may just be right come this fall.

Adam Hine #1

Adam Hine #2

Television Timetable

BYU vs. Washington (NIT 1^st Round)

Tuesday, March 19 at Provo

Tipoff: 7:30 pm Mountain Time

TV: ESPN

BYU vs. Marist College (Softball)

Tuesday, March 19 at Provo

First Pitch: 6:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. Kansas (Baseball)

Wednesday, March 20 at Provo

First Pitch: 6:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. Kansas (Baseball)

Thursday, March 21 at Provo

First Pitch: 6:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. Kansas (Baseball)

Friday, March 22 at Provo

First Pitch: 6:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. Kansas (Baseball)

Saturday, March 23 at Provo

First Pitch: 1:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. Pepperdine (Volleyball)

Thursday, March 28 at Provo

Start: 7:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

BYU vs. USC (Volleyball)

Saturday, March 30 at Provo

Start: 8:00 pm Mountain Time

TV: BYUtv

Radio

BYU vs. UNLV

Monday, March 18 at Las Vegas

First Pitch: 4:05 pm Mountain Time

KOVO 960 AM | Provo, UT BYU Radio - Sirius XM 143

Click Here to see game via live streaming on the internet.