SoonerCoug's BYU/Tulsa report

[SoonerCoug]

I just got back from the game. Here are my thoughts:

1) Lamont Morgan plays crappy defense.

2) I have a man crush on Jimmer and his mad ball-handling skills

3) Dave Rose was way too slow to switch back to man defense

4) My wife doesn't normally cheer very loudly. (Her dad is a Ute fan, and she isn't a much of a sports fan except for OU football.) A Tulsa fan sitting next to her was driving her bonkers. So when Tulsa missed the alley-oop dunk, my wife stood up, shook her fist in the air, and let out the loudest shrieking cheer I have ever heard. It was an awesome scene.

[Goatnapper'96]

I just got back from the game. Here are my thoughts:

1) Lamont Morgan plays crappy defense.

2) I have a man crush on Jimmer and his mad ball-handling skills

3) Dave Rose was way too slow to switch back to man defense

4) My wife doesn't normally cheer very loudly. (Her dad is a Ute fan, and she isn't a much of a sports fan except for OU football.) A Tulsa fan sitting next to her was driving her bonkers. So when Tulsa missed the alley-oop dunk, my wife stood up, shook her fist in the air, and let out the loudest shrieking cheer I have ever heard. It was an awesome scene.

Jimmer had 6 turnovers. Probably will be his worst game taking care of the ball.

I was pretty impressed that BYU was still able to clamp down after Emery went out of the game. Abouo is going to be a good one!

This is a much better BYU team. They are tougher and can win even when they are not draining the 3's. They are very effecient on offense and the past two games they have played slow tempo teams, and one of them a very good top 20 club, and Rose has managed to coach his tempo. Morrill is the only one who was able to take Rose out of his game.

Saturday is going to be a blast. I still worry about opposing teams beating BYU on the offensive boards and using crashing the boards as a mechanism to take BYU out of its transition game. If Miles can get 8 boards on Saturday and BYU can hit 40% of its 3's, BYU will win.

[OhioBlue]

I didn't go to the game or even see it. Yet (dvr). But here's my thought:

That's a much bigger win for BYU hoops than many might realize. For one, Tulsa is a good basketball team. Two, it was on the road against said good basketball team. In previous seasons this was an OOC road game we would have lost. In fact heading into tonight I had this one pegged as a probable loss for the Cougs. Great job Rose and crew!

btw, i'm interested to see Lamont's crappy defense, since often he is brought in for his ability to stay wth the opposing PG and play good man defense. In fact I can't remember if it was the USU game or another one where his defense on the opposing team's ballhandlers was a primary reason for the number of turnovers/steals that were forced. Coach Rose was quick to highlight the excellent defense from Lamont that night....

Were Tulsa's guards just that much better, or did he have a bad defensive night?

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I didn't go to the game or even see it. Yet (dvr). But here's my thought:

That's a much bigger win for BYU hoops than many might realize. For one, Tulsa is a good basketball team. Two, it was on the road against said good basketball team. In previous seasons this was an OOC road game we would have lost. In fact heading into tonight I had this one pegged as a probable loss for the Cougs. Great job Rose and crew!

btw, i'm interested to see Lamont's crappy defense, since often he is brought in for his ability to stay wth the opposing PG and play good man defense. In fact I can't remember if it was the USU game or another one where his defense on the opposing team's ballhandlers was a primary reason for the number of turnovers/steals that were forced. Coach Rose was quick to highlight the excellent defense from Lamont that night....

Were Tulsa's guards just that much better, or did he have a bad defensive night?

I completely agree Ohio, this is a game that other BYU teams of years past would have lost. I am starting to think this may be the year that BYU wins a game in March.

[SoonerCoug]

Jimmer had 6 turnovers. Probably will be his worst game taking care of the ball.

Yeah, Jimmer's turnovers were horrendous, but he also made several spectacular plays.

Lamont couldn't keep his man in front of him. He was getting beat on the dribble, and he also wasn't able to close out and guard the three. Putting Lamont into the game equaled automatic offense for Tulsa. Jimmer did a much better job guarding the same guys.

Abouo plays fantastic defense. His arms are deceptively long and he does a great job of extending them into passing lanes at opportune moments.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Yeah, Jimmer's turnovers were pretty horrible, but he also made several spectacular plays.

Regarding Lamont, he couldn't keep his man in front of him. He was getting beat on the dribble, and he also wasn't able to close out and guard the three. Putting Lamont into the game equaled automatic offense for Tulsa.

Jimmer had a good defensive game. Abouo plays fantastic defense. His arms are deceptively long and he does a great job of extending them into passing lanes at opportune moments.

Jimmer made some errors, but there was a stretch in the second half from around the 15 minute mark-5 minute mark, where he was by far the best player on the floor and Tulsa had no answer.

I am very excited about the next two years with him.

[cougjunkie]

I agree Rose waited way to long to switch back to man.

Jimmer had two awful turnovers with under a minute to play, but he put us on his back for a nice portion of the game.

Lee had a great game and like the announcers said, he had 26 points without hitting a 3, he did it off the dribble, cutting without the ball, off of putbacks, he was scoring at will.

JT also had a solid game and besides taking a few bad shots he played steady.

Miles played great D in the 2nd half on Jordan but was embarrassed in the first half.

Charles Abouo shut down Uzoh in the 2nd half, Uzoh had 12 first half points on 6 of 9 shooting. He finished 6-19 with 15 points.

[CardiacCoug]

Lee Cummard is a stud. He's a rare great player in college because of how efficiently he produces points. There are a lot of scorers in college like Uzoh -- they put up a ton of shots and shoot 40% from the field, 35% from 3-point land. Uzoh ends up with 15 points on 19 FG attempts -- typical college "scorer".

When Lee scores his 26 points on just 13 FG attempts, that scoring efficiency is what really helps BYU win these games despite the turnovers and Tulsa's second-chance points.

[cougjunkie]

Was anyone else shocked when they showed the halftime stats and BYU was only being out rebounded 21-20? I felt like we were getting dominated on the glass in the 1st half.

[Goatnapper'96]

Was anyone else shocked when they showed the halftime stats and BYU was only being out rebounded 21-20? I felt like we were getting dominated on the glass in the 1st half.

BYU does get dominated on the glass. I would think that somebody could develop a breakdown of rebounding effeceincy that takes into consideration shooting percentages and gives a team more points for offensive rebounds. When BYU shoots 15-20% higher than its opponents it should absolutely be dominating on the boards as the opponent is getting far fewer opportunities for defensive rebounds than BYU. This is what is going to be BYU achilles heal. The rebounding woes cripple BYU in many ways. Principally, it gives the opponents significantly more offensive opportunities and thus allows them to score similarly to BYU without having to be as offensively effecient. It deflates a team after playing great man to man defense, forcing a tough shot and then giving up an offensive rebound. It leads to foul trouble as usually when a team gets an offensive rebound they are in a great position to score quickly and often draw fouls as a consequence. But a final crushing blow is that giving up offensive boards kills BYU's transition game. The break and secondary break are fundamental to BYU's open shots and high shooting percentage. So giving up offensive boards will kill BYU's defense and offense.

This is where I think BYU misses Plaisted the most. Miles is a better on the ball post defender than Trent. But Trent was a far superior scorer and rebounder. But where BYU misses Trent the most was that Trent's ability to run the floor and be part of the primary and secondary break put so much pressure on opposing bigs that they were unable to focus upon crashing the offensive boards. This year Miles, while athletic for a big, doesn't run the floor and have the ability to be crafty in transition like Plaisted. Opposing bigs are now free to crash the boards and get their team offensive boards and numerous more opportunities to score on BYU.

If this team had Rafa instead of Miles they might be a top 10 team. The one thing that stands between this team and being potentially great is a serious glass cleaning big on the boards.

[Indy Coug]

Lamont couldn't keep his man in front of him. He was getting beat on the dribble, and he also wasn't able to close out and guard the three. Putting Lamont into the game equaled automatic offense for Tulsa. Jimmer did a much better job guarding the same guys.

Which is probably why Lamont only got 9 minutes.