HB Arnett’s 801 372 - 0819 hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South – Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 33, Issue 19 – December 10, 2012 Click <http://cougarclicks.com/product/Order-Cougar-Sportsline?ID=3173> Here To Order Or Renew Your Subscriptions BYU 61 Utah 58 Carlino Finds “Range on the Home (Court)” Just in Time Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam And the deer and the antelope play Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day Home, home on the range Thank goodness that Matt Carlino found his range at home from beyond the arc last Saturday night in a 61-58 come from behind win over Utah in the Marriott Center. Without his 19 points on 5 three-pointers, BYU loses to the Utes and Cougar coaches, players and fans would have given a new meaning to a discouraging word and cloudy skies. Before Carlino’s breakout shooting session against the Utes, the sophomore guard’s 3-point shot in the Cougars’ first 8 games was somewhere out roaming on the vast prairie wasteland of 3-of-22 shooting beyond the arc. His outside shot was as stale as new buffalo chips are fresh. Both stunk. Against the Utes, Carlino’s outside shooting came in from the cold…and just in time. That’s because Utah’s defense of a box and one basically took Tyler Haws out of the game. Haws was just 2-10 from the floor, but he was very instrumental in the second half in securing the win by going 10-10 from the foul line. Haws finished the game with 14 points Brandon Davies chipped in 11 points, but he was a non factor in the first 20 minutes of the contest when Utah built up an 11 point lead over the Cougars. In the first half, the Utes were playing like brutes in the paint while BYU’s inside game was more Bambi than buffalo. That changed in the second half as the Cougars became more aggressive on the glass. Win the come-from-behind win, BYU is now 6-3 on the year. They will now face Weber State this coming Saturday night in Ogden. That game will be shown live by BYUtv. DOUBTFUL MAYAN CALENDER WILL BE END OF WORLD, BUT MORE LIKELY END BYU’S NCAA INVITES It’s doubtful that the Mayans will be right about the end of the world set for December 21, but they are very likely to be right about the end of BYU’ consecutive NCAA tournament invites in March. The Mayan calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. According to some, it predicts calamity and the conclusion of the world later this month. I don’t know much about Mesoamerica, but I can spot a mess in Provo when I see one. That would be BYU basketball this season. No, the BYU program isn’t a train wreck and won’t be succumbing to anything cataclysmic this season. They still might find a way to get 20 wins this season. But barring some kind of Mayan miracle, they more than likely won’t be returning for their seventh consecutive NCAA invite this coming March. It has nothing to do with the lunar and linear nature of the Mayan calendar. It has to do with the lack of talent on this Cougar team. There simply isn’t enough of it on this BYU basketball club to merit an NCAA invite. Brandon Davies is a legit post player. But there is zip, zero or Zihautanejo behind him. When he goes to the bench with foul problems or production issues, it really is the Mayan calendar for the Cougars and the end is near. Scheming Tyler Haws is a player. That’s why opposing defenses are scheming defensively to take him out of the BYU offensive offense. When it comes to BYU guard play, there are plenty of guys that are good enough to be all Yucatan Peninsula players, just not good enough to take BYU to a winning record worthy of an NCAA invite. BYU has issues in the front court. Before the season started, Dave Rose said that career ending injuries to Chris Collinsworth and Stephen Rogers would hurt the Cougars this season, but that he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. We will. If Rogers were available, it would give Rose the option to let Rogers play the three and move Haws at times to the off guard. That is not an option now. Even more devastating was the loss of Collinsworth. Last week because of the cancellation of the BYU-USU game, BYUtv was showing reruns of Cougar-Aggie girl’s games and other BYU-USU men’s games. The one I watched again was from Nov 17, 2010. That was the year USU was very good inside with Ty Wesley. Brutal Battle BYU won that game 78-72, but it was a brutal battle. Dave Rose played Brandon Davies in that game a total of one minute. He went with Noah Hartsock, James Anderson and Chris Collinsworth up front. Collinsworth kept the Cougars in the game. He was a beast on the boards and on defense. He played one or two more games that season and then never saw the court again. There was a reason his loss to injury was devastating later that year, last year and this season. The good news is that in watching that game it was obvious that Rose had high hopes and high expectations for Kyle Collinsworth. So do I. He will be an instant improvement in guard play for the Cougars next season. He returns from his LDS mission next spring. BYU can sell injuries to me for BYU’s ordinary front court game. I’ll buy that. But what are they selling to me and you concerning the guard line. It was spotty and sketchy last season and about the same this year. What’s the excuse for having no guards in the program last year and this season? We can buy the mission deal. Collinsworth left on his and Damarcus Harrison almost left, but left BYU with a void. No Transition How do you go from Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery, to what we have now without anything to make the transition to the future with Kyle Collinsworth, Nick Emery, Cory Calvert, Jordan Chatman and TJ Haws down the road? Maybe it is Mayan. The calendar for guard talent didn’t line up in the recruiting cycles. Maybe there weren’t any LDS guards to get. I base that on the fact that many who follow BYU basketball can quickly point out the recruiting misses of the Cougars when an LDS player proves to be a player at another program. So who did Dave Rose and his staff miss when it came to LDS guards the last few years? I need help here. Where are the good LDS guards playing for other teams this year? You can’t miss if there is nothing to miss on. That seems to be the case when it comes to LDS guards the last couple of years. I received a lot of feedback on my Mormon meat market recruiting thing from last week. Most of it countered with BYU needing to be more proactive in going after non-LDS players. Some even gave me examples such as the Joe Harris, the 6-6 junior guard at Virginia. BYU recruited him, but apparently not hard enough, according to those close to the situation. Buy That I buy that. I also buy the fact that history shows that good non-LDS players are the exception in recruiting for BYU, not the rule. Time and resources are allocated to what works best and that appears to be basing the program on LDS players. The argument of recruiting more non-LDS players versus focusing mainly on LDS players is valid. It just isn’t what is going to happen with this coaching staff. They are mining the Mormon market. Based on the guard play last year and this year, the Mormon guard market came up dry for a couple of years. I will stick with that theory unless you can come up with the names of some LDS guards now playing NCAA basketball elsewhere that BYU missed on. BYU vs. Utah State rescheduled for Feb. 19 Here’s the official BYU announcement on the cancelled BYU-USU game and when it will be played. PROVO, Utah – BYU athletics announced that the BYU vs. Utah State basketball game has been rescheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. MST at the Marriott Center. The game will be broadcast on live BYUtv. The game was originally scheduled for Dec. 5 but was postponed due to the serious medical situation of USU student-athlete Danny Berger that occurred during practice on Dec. 4. All tickets issued for the original game will be honored on Feb. 19. Please direct all ticketing questions to the Marriott Center Ticket Office at (800) 322-2981 or (801) 422-BYU1. Women’s Week The BYU’s women’s volleyball team came up short last Friday in Omaha. The Lady Cougars were defeated by Oregon in 3-1 in an effort to make it to the elite eight in the NCAA Women’s volleyball championship. The Cougars finished their year with an outstanding 28-4 record overall, the most victories for a Cougar team since 1999. This season also marked BYU’s first conference title since 2005 and first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2007. In basketball, the Lady Cougars improved to 5-4 on the year by handing Utah their first loss of the season 53-48 in Salt Lake City. Senior guard Haley Steed led all scorers with 22 points. Poinsettia Portrait This Week We should get a pretty good picture this week when it comes to who will be playing quarterback for BYU in the Poinsettia Bowl against San Diego State on Dec 20 in San Diego. That’s because Bronco Mendenhall and his charges will take to the indoor practice facility beginning Monday in preparation for the game. The guy getting the most snaps by midweek will be the starter. There is no official word yet from BYU on the health status of Riley Nelson, but no official word will be needed. Just a quick look to who is getting reps. If there is anyway that Nelson can waddle and wiggle his way to the line of scrimmage and take a snap, he will be the guy. That has been the modus operandi of Bronco all year and we see no reason why he would contemplate doing something different now. There also has been no official word on coaching changes and we shouldn’t expect any until after the bowl game. There has been plenty of scuttlebutt that at least two assistants will be replaced before the start of spring football. We hear that the change will come through attrition and retirement. That means the two most likely guys to go would be offensive line coach Mark Weber and tight end coach Lance Reynolds. One guy not going anywhere is Bronco himself. The Colorado deal was not real, according to Mendenhall. What is still real, however, is the BYU defense. It will take one of their best efforts of the year to prevail over San Diego State. With the Cougar quarterback story still a crapshoot, it will be up to the defense to hold the fort if BYU will come away with a win. The early line on the game out of Las Vegas has the Cougars as a 2 ½ point favorite. We will give more a more detailed analysis of the game next week. BYU Still Adding Names BYU football coaches have spent some time on the road visiting recruits and they have also spent time in Provo hosting other recruits. The time spent has added some more names to BYU’s current list of verbal commitments for football. The newest commitments are: Tanner Shipley and Johnny Ragin, both are teammates at Wilsonville HS in Oregon. Shipley, a 6-2, 185 receiver, committed to the Cougars in the early fall, but then decided to take some looks elsewhere. He has since come back to the Cougars after taking a look at Wyoming and Colorado. Ragin is a 6-3, 215 pound linebacker. He had other recruiting interest from a couple of Pac 12 schools and some schools from the Mountain West Conference. Also committing was Sam Lee, a juco defensive back from College of the Canyons in Southern California. Lee is 6-0, 180 and had interest from Maryland and New Mexico. He prepped in Maryland and is a returned LDS missionary. Here is BYU’s current football commit list: Tanner Shipley, 6-2, 180, WR from Wilsonville HS, OR Johnny Ragin, 6-3, 215, LB, from Wilsonville HS, OR Sam Lee, 6-0, 180, CB, from College of the Canyons JC, CA Keegan Hicks, 6-3, 280 OL from South Jordan, Utah (Bingham High School) Brayden Kearsley, 6-6, 250 OL from Portland, Ore. (Aloha High School) Trajan Pili, 6-2, 200 LB from Las Vegas (Centennial High School) Dallin Leavitt, 5-11, 196 Safety from Portland, Ore. (Central Catholic High School) Moroni Laulu-Pututau, 6-4, 190, TE from Hyrum, Utah (Mountain Crest High School) Talon Shumway, 6-3, 190, WR from Highland, Utah (Lone Peak High School) JonRyheem Peoples, 6-6, 300 OL from Rigby, Idaho (Rigby High School) Maataua Brown, 6-5, 290, DT from Norwalk, Calif. (Cerritos Junior College) Kalolo Manumaleuna Utu, 6-2, 250, LB from Compton, Calif. (Compton Junior College) Nathan DeBeikes, 6-2, 196, LB from Thousand Oaks, Calif. (Thousand Oaks HS) Johnny Tapasoa, 5-10, 190, Safety from Kahuku, Hawaii (Kahuku High School) Addison Pulsipher, 6-5, 240, DE from Temecula, Calif. (Temecula Valley High School) Billy Green, 6-2, 196, QB from Shoreline, Wash. (Christian King's High School) Hayden Weichers, 6-0, 165 WR from South Jordan, Utah (Bingham High School) Kai Nacua, 6-2, 200 LB from Las Vegas, Nev. (Liberty High School) Patrick Palau, 5-11, 240 FB from Salt Lake City, Utah (East High School) Thomas Shoaf, 6-6, 265 OL from Columbus, Indiana (Columbus North HS) Garrett England, 6-3, 185 WR from Salt Lake City, Utah (Skyline High School) Michael Davis, 6-2, 180 WR from Los Angeles, Calif. (Glendale High School) Inoke Lotulelei, 5-8, 175 WR from Salt Lake City, Utah (Cottonwood High School) Darrin Laufasa, 6-1, 220 RB from Bothell, Wash. (Bothell High School) Merrill Taliauli, 6-2, 305 DL from Salt Lake City, Utah (East High School) Claudell Louis 6-6, 270 DE from Visalia, Calif. (College of the Sequoias) Rylee Gautavai, 6-1, 200 linebacker from Bountiful, Utah (Bountiful High School) Jordan Preator, 6-0, 183 Safety from Plain City, Utah (Fremont High School) Television Timetable BYU vs. Weber State Saturday, Dec 15 at Ogden Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Eastern New Mexico Tuesday, Dec 18 at Provo Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Baylor Friday, Dec 21 at Waco Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN2 BYU vs. Northern Arizona Thursday, Dec 27 at Provo Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time BYUtv BYU vs. Virginia Tech Saturday, Dec 29 at Salt Lake City Tipoff: Noon Mountain Time TV: ESPNU BYU vs. Loyola Marymount Thursday, Jan 3 at Provo Tipoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: BYUtv