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West 800 South –
Vol. 30,
Issue 29 – February 22, 2010
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BYU
BASKETBALL...FOOTNOTES AND FLOODLIGHTS
BYU won two road games
last week to add to Cougars' basketball bibliography for this season.
Let it be noted those
games weren't exactly page turners. The scores for those contests were BYU 92
CSU 70 and BYU 85 Wyoming 63.
File both wins as just
minor footnotes in the main story of this basketball year that will unfold in
With San Diego State
coming to town on Wednesday and New Mexico arriving for a conference
championship showdown on Saturday, these games will not only have the attention
of the rest of the conference, but a smattering of the national spotlight also.
That is to be expected
when two top 15 teams face each other as is the case with UNM and BYU.
We expect both games to
be battles of boinks and boards.
Against the Aztecs, it
will be a battle for the boards. The Aztecs play like the old teams of UTEP
under Don Haskins. Those old UTEP offenses were based around throwing the ball
up at the basket and then going to get it for an offensive rebound and a put
back.
That is what we expect from
SDSU. They are extremely long, athletic and talented up front. They will be all
over the offensive boards. BYU will have to find a way to negate this
advantage.
The Cougars can't match
up inside with SDSU but are a much better perimeter team. We hate to keep
hammering the same theme, but if BYU shoots the ball well from the outside,
they are almost unbeatable.
Boinks
Against
We expect this game to be
decided by three-point shooting. The team that has the most boinks and misses
from long distance will find themselves on the losing end of the score.
We expect BYU to play a
lot of zone against UNM to try and keep Dairese Gary from penetration to the rim.
That means UNM will have to be hot from the arc to win this game.
We expect Jimmer Fredette
to have a good game, but we also expect that it will take some more help from
the outside for BYU to win. Either Jonathan Tavernari, Jackson Emery or Tyler
Haws will have to be scoring big from long distance if the Cougars if BYU is to
win.
We will tow the party
line on these two games and call two BYU wins. Neither will be easy and both
should be nail biters.
FLUFF
AND STUFF
FIGURE SKATING AND BASKETBALL...We
like football more than we like basketball. The main reason for our preference
is that in football, there is less subjectivity when it comes to games.
Sure there are blown
calls, but overall, if a football team is bigger and better than their
opponent, they just keep knocking the other team on their behinds and then get
up and do it again. The vast majority of the time, regardless of some missed
calls, the better team will win.
We realize that in
basketball, officiating, by nature, has to be subjective. Overall, we think
game officials do a very good job, considering the job requirements.
Most coaches acknowledge
the rigors of officiating, but sometimes they can also get a little annoyed.
The most annoyed we have seen BYU's Dave Rose this season was a few weeks back
when he obviously was disgusted with the lack of calls given Jimmer Fredette
going to the basket in the final minutes of the BYU-UNM game in Albuquerque.
We acknowledge that our
perspective may be a little tainted because we see way more of BYU basketball
than we do of other teams in the league. We admit that our viewpoint is very
subjective, but in our opinion, Jimmer Fredette is not getting the same calls
by conference officials that he was getting in other games officiated by
non-conference officials.
We are aware of all the
variables of officiating. Players that go to the basket get more calls than
jump shooters. But again, in our opinion, Fredette doesn't get equal treatment
when he goes to the basket in MWC games as he did in non-MWC games.
We also realize that
officials tend to swallow the whistle when a blowout is in progress and seem to
be more interested in keeping the clock running than putting a player at the
line. That is understandable and appreciated.
With all of that said, here
are some numbers we find interesting when it comes to three of the top players
in the Mountain West Conference.
In all games (conference
and non-conference) played to date by Jimmer Fredette, Tre'von Willis of UNLV
and Dairese Gary of New Mexico, here are their free throw numbers. All three
have basically played the same number of contests.
Fredette, overall this
season, has shot 169 free throws and made 152 of those attempts.
Willis, overall this
season, has shot 171 free throws and made 143 of his attempts.
Here are the free throw
numbers for the same three players in Mountain West Conference play only.
Fredette, in MWC games,
has shot 75 free throws and converted 65 of those.
Willis, in MWC games, has
had 117 free throws, making 94 of them.
According to our math, in
non-conference contests this season, Fredette had 94 free throw attempts,
As soon as conference
play started, those numbers flip-flopped with Willis getting 117 attempts,
It was obvious that Dave
Rose thought Fredette should have had more calls, especially in the late going
of the first UNM game when he was taking the ball to the basket and never got
to the line.
We saw at least seven or
eight times in last week's games against
All we do know is that
when it comes to free throw attempts, it appears that Fredette is not getting the
same calls in conference play that he was getting in non-conference games.
Maybe conference
defenders against Fredette are just much better than those non-conference
players who defended the junior guard from
We will also bet that
when BYU gets into NCAA post-season action, that Fredette will spend more time
at the charity stripe than he currently does now in MWC play.
Again, these are just our
observations and another reason we prefer football over basketball.
NO DISCREPENCY IN ROSE'S NUMBERS...One
place where the numbers don't lie is with Dave Rose. In five years at the BYU
basketball helm, he has put together the following numbers; 20-9; 25-9; 27-8;
25-8.
With a current record of
25-3 and with at least 6 games remaining to play, which includes at least one
game each in the MWC and NCAA post-season tournaments, a 30-win season for Rose
and BYU is not out of the question.
Rose has received a lot
of national attention this season. Most of it deals with his inspirational and
heartwarming story in regards to his battle with cancer. All of the media
coverage is well-deserved.
Where he should be
receiving more coverage is in his coaching record. Much praise is heaped on
Bronco Mendenhall for his model and matrix with BYU football. It too is
deserved.
What is obvious to us is
that Rose has a very good model for BYU basketball. He knows his recruiting
base and talent needs and always seems to find a way to fill those needs with
his realistic pool of talent.
You don't win as many
games as Rose has without being a great recruiter and a great coach.
THE
FUTURES MARKET
Listed below are how
BYU's most recent signees and future prospects fared during the last week. All
except recent signee Anson Winder, are LDS.
Kyle Collinsworth, 6-6 guard/wing,
senior,
The regular season ends
for
the following week.
Nick Emery, 6-0 freshman guard,
Anson Winder, 6-3, guard, Senior,
Bishop Gorman HS...In a 90-51 win over Arbor View, Winder scored the first nine
points of the game and finished with 33. He connected on eight 3-pointers and
finished 12-for-17 from the floor. Bishop Gorman will meet Desert Oasis on
Monday afternoon in the Sunset Region Playoffs.
Jabari Parker, 6-5, wing, Freshman,
Simeon HS,
DeMarcus Harrison, 6-4, guard, Junior,
Jordan Chatman, 6-3, guard, Sophomore,
Skyview HS,
Jordan Smoot, 6-10, center, Junior,
Stephen Rogers...6-8, 190, forward,
Freshman,
Here are
the current MWC Basketball Standings as of Monday, February 22
BYU........................10-2.....25-3
SDSU........................9-4.....20-7
UNLV.......................8-5.....20-7
CSU..........................6-6.....15-11
TCU..........................4-8.....12-15
Air
Force..................1-11.....9-16
TELEVISION
TIMETABLE
BYU vs.
Wednesday, Feb 24 at
Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: CBS C
BYU vs.
Saturday, Feb 27 at
Tipoff: 2:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: Versus
BYU vs.
Wednesday, Mar 3 at
Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: CBS C
BYU vs.
TCU
Saturday, Mar 6 at
Tipoff: 4:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: The Mtn
MWC Post
Season Tournament
March 11-13 at
Tipoff: TBA
TV: Mtn/CBS C/Versus