HB Arnett's 801 372 - 0819 hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South - Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 33, Issue 36 - April 1, 2013 Click Here <http://cougarclicks.com/product/Order-Cougar-Sportsline?ID=3173> To Order Or Renew Your Subscriptions BYU HEADED TO NEW YORK CITY AND NIT VIA VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA BYU and Baylor will face off Tuesday evening, April 2 in the NIT semi-finals in New York City. The tipoff is set for 5:00 pm Mountain Time and the game will be broadcast live on ESPN. This will mark the first time since 1966 that BYU has made the trip to New York City to play at Madison Square Garden. A win against Baylor would put the Cougars in the NIT Final against the winner of Iowa vs. Maryland. That game is set for Thursday, April 4. The difference in BYU basketball since the embarrassing exit and first round loss to San Diego in the WCC post season tournament has been remarkable. There are lots of reasons for the Cougars' surprising three-game run through Washington, Mercer and Southern Miss that punched BYU's ticket to the Big Apple. Here are some I can think of. Let's start with renewed enthusiasm and dedication from the coaches and team. Opponents don't get enough time to scout and exploit BYU's inherent weaknesses. BYU has been on fire offensively. In the last three games, Nate Austin is playing the best basketball of his two year BYU career. Tyler Haws and Brandon Davies have been awesome offensively. All of those reasons for BYU's spectacular play over the last two weeks are true, but the bottom line for the resurgence, in my opinion, can be traced to the markedly improved play of Matt Carlino. What Happened? So what happened between the dismal disappointment of Carlino's late regular season play and his spectacular play in the NIT? Here's something I noticed. During the interim between the end of regular season play and the start of the NIT, Dave Rose made a statement to a Cougar Club luncheon that he expected Kyle Collinsworth to be his lead guard next year and that the ball would be in Collinsworth's hands for the majority of minutes next season. If I noticed that, I am supposing that Carlino also picked up on it. His game has certainly picked up since that remark from Rose. Chalk up an assist from Vladivostok, Russia where Collinsworth is current serving an LDS mission. He returns home next month. Despite the offensive consistency of Tyler Haws and the good play of Brandon Davies this season, the bottom line appears to be that as Matt Carlino goes, so go the Cougars. That's not news. I thought I had been pointing that out through the season in this newsletter. After the win over Washington in the opening NIT game, an astute and observant subscriber with whom I regularly correspond wrote his interesting take on Carlino and point guard play in general. Here is some of what he said after the Washington win: Haws put on shooting clinic in NIT victory over Washington Haws was great in the first half, but BYU still looked awful--they were just grinding their way to a loss. Haws can score points, but he can't win games all by himself. Neither can Davies. But Carlino can win games, because he gets steals, produces cheap baskets, and upsets the flow of the game. He steals baskets from the other team and turns them into easy, momentum-shifting baskets for BYU. Every single time BYU has looked great this year, it's been because of Carlino. When he doesn't play, or when he doesn't play well, BYU is beatable by almost anyone. BYU's fans see the errors, and the turnovers, but they don't understand what it is that point guards do because BYU almost never has a real point guard. It's usually a black position and quality point guards never go to BYU. Real point guards break a lot eggs, but they still wind up with plenty of omelets (aka: wins) when the season is over. Am I crazy? Let's look at Phil Pressey, from Missouri. Pressey was tabbed a first-team All American point guard this season by CBS Sports. This year he's got 233 assists, 58 steals, 112 rebounds, and 119 turnovers. Carlino, playing 20% fewer minutes, has 148 assists, 61 steals, 110 rebounds, and 90 turnovers. Remember, Pressey was touted as the best point guard in America before the season started, but guess what? Carlino can play with him. Carlino is a stronger rebounder, and a stronger defender, with more steals and rebounds per minute played. Also notice turnovers: Carlino has 22 less than Pressey, which means that on a minutes-played basis they're about the same. Carlino does have fewer assists, but the difference is mitigated when you do the minutes-played analysis (though Pressey still has more). Oh, and Carlino scores more points per minute played than Pressey, and has a higher field goal percentage. And. . . .Carlino is willing to spend his college years without beer and sex. That's why BYU can't have Pressey, or the other great point guards out there. Go look at the numbers and do your own analysis on a per-minute basis. Without Carlino this year, BYU has a half-dozen fewer wins, and they certainly wouldn't have won last night. This team has a lot of problems, but Carlino isn't one of them. By the way, can you think of one thing that any BYU player did last night who wasn't named Davies, Haws, or Carlino? THAT is the problem with this team. Now would be a good time to mention a player not named Davies, Haws, or Carlino. Brock Zylstra had 23 points and was on fire beyond the arc against Southern Miss. If the senior can back up that game with a similar outing in New York, this team might actually be like they were in Hattiesburg: Unbeatable. Recruiting Notes.April 17 signals the start of the spring signing period for basketball recruits. BYU already has a commitment from Skyler Halford, a 6-2 juco guard from Salt Lake Community College. Dave Rose and his staff have also extended a scholarship offer to Halford's teammate, 6-7 Sai Tummala. Halford was an easy get for the Cougars. He prepped in Orem at Timpanogos HS, redshirted as a walkon at Utah State, served an LDS mission and then played two years at SLCC. Tummala will be a tougher sign. He is not LDS, has seen big time basketball at the Divison I level as a walkon on at Michigan. He is also being pursued hard by Nebraska and their new coach, former CSU coach Tim Miles. Here is the Nebraska media's take on Tummala and the Huskers' recruitment of him: "Tummala, a 6-6, 215-pound forward, played this season at Salt Lake City Community College, and has three years of eligibility remaining after redshirting his freshman season at Michigan, where he was a preferred walk-on. Said Michigan coach John Beilein of Tummala at the time: "He may be our most athletic player. Aside from maybe Trey Burke (this year's Big Ten player of the year), he's one of our quickest players." Nebraska assistant coach Craig Smith saw Tummala play at last week's NJCAA Tournament in Hutchinson, Kan., where Tummala scored 39 points on 15-of-28 shooting with 13 rebounds over two games. A 4.0 student, the left-handed Tummala averaged 14.8 points and 5.9 rebounds on 50.9-percent shooting - 41.1 percent on three-pointers - in one season at Salt Lake City CC. Tummala played high school basketball at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix. As a senior, he averaged 17.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.2 blocks, and was an Academic All-State player in 2011. According to the Nebraska media, besides the offer from the Huskers, Tummala's other offers are from BYU, Santa Clara, Penn, Drake and Miami of Ohio. He is a Philadelphia native who attended Brophy Prep in Phoenix before walking on at Michigan. Now Need to Watch Movie in Fall BYU's Spring Football Game Was Just a Trailer I learned a long time ago, that you can't judge a movie by its preview trailer. You don't know if they picked the only good scenes from the film and you saw the best there was to see or if a film will be better than its previews. With BYU Spring Football, the trailers are never a true picture of what we will see in the fall when the real movie is released. For Bronco Mendenhall, the movie is always better than the trailers. What 12,000 fans saw in previews last Saturday in Lavell Edwards Stadium was a trailer that featured the supporting cast and a few bit players. The real stars of this fall's BYU football team, either didn't appear or were relegated to limited cameo roles. BYU always promotes the spring game as a mega blockbuster, but the reality is that it is just a low budget B movie with lesser known or no name actors or players. So how do we judge BYU football by what they put on the screen and field during the spring game? Like a lot of movies we have to rely on critics and their critiques. I have picked three separate video critiques of the spring game for your peeking and perusal. 1. Baghdad <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgqDVSuA5sY&list=UUPGJ6U6tzIKHubr5zFWFZLw&in dex=6> Bob BYUtv is always upbeat and mostly unrealistic, so this is the ultimate feel good critique. 2. Bad <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DSVDxrL3IFg> Boy Bob Bronco Mendenhall reaped a personal public relations coup with the hiring of Robert Anae. Mendenhall, who always had media struggles in the past, now sounds like a PR pro in comparison to Anae. Listening to Anae's assessment of the spring game, if Colorado School of Mines was on the fall schedule, I'm betting on the Orediggers. If I had to establish the Las Vegas line on Anae vs. the media, I'm making Anae a 17 point underdog. I'm laying the points and taking twitter and the Tribune in this dog fight. 3. Bronco Bob <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F5C1sLyh00> Crisp and Clean with plenty of clarity. That's not a description of 7-Up, but of Bronco Mendenhall's post spring game comments and assessment of Saturday's scrimmage. 4. No video clips, but some snips and snapshots of my assessment of BYU Spring Football. BYU is back in the quarterback business. Taysom Hill, if 100% healthy, is the real deal. Even better, his backups, Ammon Olsen and Christian Stewart are also strong armed and competitive. The cupboard is not bare at this most important position on the team. The tight end mystery continues. Nobody has emerged. The offensive line is also still a mystery, but I like what I see of Garrett Tujague and how he runs the show at this position. Throw in a few more bodies in the fall, and this will be a major upgrade over last year. The offense is only as good as its playmakers. BYU has plenty of those for the fall. Without a tight end to count on, look for Hill, Jamaal Williams and Cody Hoffman to get at least 60 percent of the offensive touches this coming season. Defensively, BYU needs a nose tackle. If they can find one by fall, the defense will be stout again. There is still one corner to fill, but BYU is still scouring the juco scene for help in the fall. The latest possible help is Robertson Daniel, a corner out of DeAnza JC in Northern California. He committed to the Cougars last week. He still has some academic issues to work out, but if those are solved, he will help assuage the loss of Trent Trammell to a knee injury suffered during the first day of spring drills. SPRING SPORTS Volleyball On its way to what looks like a national championship in volleyball, BYU continues to win in MPSF play. The Cougars defeated Pepperdine and USC in Provo this past week. Here is BYU's official story on the win over USC. PROVO, Utah-Taylor Sander's's career-high .762 hitting put the BYU men's volleyball team on top 3-0 (25-14, 25-15, 26-24) in the Senior Night match against USC Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse. The win clinches the No. 1 seed in the MPSF Tournament for the Cougars. "Being senior night, one of the things we talked about was not having any family distractions or anything else," BYU head coach Chris McGown said. "But that is what is so great about this team. It doesn't matter what day it is or who we are playing, they come out and play. Tonight, we played a complete game. The guys did great offensively, they dug well and blocked well. It was pretty fun to watch. We still have a lot of volleyball left to play, and we hope to be back here to host the MPSF tournament." Sander led the team with 17 kills and three blocks. Ben Patch contributed 10 kills and a team-high five blocks. Michael Hatch also had five blocks and five kills, and Ryan Boyce helped out with 33 assists. Josue Rivera finished the night with a team-high four aces with five kills on the night. For the second time in history, BYU (19-3, 18-2 MPSF) won all of its matches in March, going 8-0 during the month. The Cougars, riding an 11-match win streak, also hit a .545 clip, a season high and third-best in BYU rally scoring history. BYU made only seven hitting errors, while the Trojans picked up 19. Tied 6-6, Hatch stepped up for two quick kills to push the Cougars ahead 8-6 for the last lead change of the first set. Boyce launched an 8-0 scoring streak for BYU on a kill. Back-to-back aces by Rivera gave BYU a 19-11 lead and a third ace by Rivera put the Cougars ahead 10 at 21-11, capping the run. Sander finished off the set with a kill for a 25-14 win. Sander led with six kills on a .857 clip in the first set. The team hit .750 during the set, the Cougars' highest hitting percentage in a single set this season. BYU skipped out to a 4-0 lead in the second set before USC could respond. The Cougars took a double-figure lead on a 10-2 scoring run. A block by Hatch, Patch and Sander brought the score to 17-7, and BYU took the set 25-15 on a Trojan error. USC held strong in the third set, going ahead 3-1 to start the set and not relinquishing hold on the lead until late in the set. A Sander kill cut BYU's deficit to 22-21 and the set was tied up 22-22 on a USC error. The Trojans couldn't keep it together, as the Cougars took the lead 23-22 on a blocking error. An attack error by the Trojans put the Cougars at match point, but a kill by USC's Tanner Jansen kept the Trojans in the game. Tied 24-24, Patch put down another kill and a Trojan attack error finished off the set 26-24. BYU hits the road for a four-match trip to California to finish out the regular season, starting with a matchup at UC Santa Barbara Friday at 7 p.m. PDT. Baseball The Cougars took two of three games from WCC league leader Pepperdine last week in Provo. BYU beat the Waves 8-3 and 10-9 on Thursday and Friday, but lost the final game of the three-game series to Pepperdine 9-6. Softball This is not a very good team. Houston swept the Lady Cougars in a three game series in Provo this past weekend. The Cougars are now 14-18 overall, but 4-0 in PCSC play. That is coming off a four game sweep of San Diego in San Diego two weeks ago. Television Timetable BYU vs. Baylor (M Basketball) Tuesday, April 2 at New York Tipoff: 5:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN2 BYU vs. Utah Valley (Baseball) Tuesday, April 2 at Provo First Pitch: 6:00 pm Mountain Time TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Washington State (Baseball) Monday, April 8 at Provo First Pitch: 10:00 am Mountain Time TV: BYUtv