I like him.Originally Posted by Joe Public
I like him.
Baxter and Emery both played very well tonight. And good thing since everyone else was struggling. Glad to see Baxter progressing. Didn't see him play much for a long stretch of games, so was concerned he was injured or something. Nice to see there's another way to score when teams commit two defenders to Yoeli. Also, very pleased with Baxter's progress on defense. For the most part, he was able to block and defend without fouling.
"I think it was King Benjamin who said 'you sorry ass shitbags who have no skills that the market values also have an obligation to have the attitude that if one day you do in fact win the PowerBall Lottery that you will then impart of your substance to those without.'"
- Goatnapper'96
FIFY.
"Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr Epstein."
Upon rejecting the Beatles, Dick Rowe told Brian Epstein of the January 1, 1962 audition for Decca, which signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.
According to the numbers (KenPom), LMU is actually a pretty good defensive team, ranking 3rd among WCC teams behind only Gonzaga and USF, and 80th nationally. They had what should have been an effective strategy against BYU by smothering Childs with double teams made even more effective by the fact they play a 7-3 guy. Yoeli did a good job with it, being patient and not forcing up shots while double-teamed -- he only took 7 shots. What caught LMU completely by surprise was Baxter taking full advantage of those double teams on Yoeli. If he's been able to turn the corner now from earlier in the season when he was getting into playing shape and still getting used to playing basketball again it makes BYU a completely different team to have to prepare against. Hopefully this will also help Emery with his confidence. Funny that his 5/5 from three made the entire team shoot a respectable 37% as a team even though almost everyone else was cold again from there.
Last edited by BlueK; 02-04-2019 at 06:58 AM.
With the next two games coming against last place Portland and second to last place Pacific, BYU has a good chance to strengthen their current second place in the standings and put some pressure on USF and SMC who both play at Gonzaga this week. USF plays at the Zags on Thursday while SMC goes there on Saturday. If all goes as expected, by next week BYU will still have 3 conference losses and 2 more wins, but USF and SMC will both probably have 4 losses each.
Last edited by BlueK; 02-07-2019 at 06:56 AM.
Just for fun I looked at how BYU's games stack up into the quadrants the NCAA selection committee now uses. No surprise that they are 0-6 in quad 1 games, but I was surprised to see BYU is currently 3-0 vs. Quad 2, with the opportunity to pick up 2 more of those in the regular season (at USD and USF at home). Unfortunately the record vs. Quad 3 is only 3-4, with 8-0 against Quad 4. All the Quad 3 losses were in that bad stretch in December (Illinois State, Weber State, UNLV and SDSU) SDSU if they win a few good ones down the stretch still has a shot at becoming a Quad 2 game. Take those 4 Q3 losses away and BYU would actually still be in the NCAA bubble conversation.
I know, this of course means nothing for the NCAA tournament unless we win the conference tournament. For the NIT, given that it's owned by the NCAA and uses more or less the same criteria, if we close out strong I think we still do have a shot at an invitation and a decent seeding. And not that I think we should be thrilled in any year about going to the NIT, I am glad we are playing better than we were as Baxter has emerged and Emery seems now to be able to contribute in a meaningful way. With those two playing well I think we're a much better team than a month ago.
Started off the game with some poor 3-point shooting (as usual). Nobody was attacking the rim, either.
Baxter delivered some really nice passes to Harding- one for a 3, another for a layup. He also displayed good patience and control when getting the ball down low, resulting in some scores. He's made some good progress since the beginning of the season.
Nice run with 5ish minutes remaining to take the lead and push it to double figures toward the end of the game.
"I think it was King Benjamin who said 'you sorry ass shitbags who have no skills that the market values also have an obligation to have the attitude that if one day you do in fact win the PowerBall Lottery that you will then impart of your substance to those without.'"
- Goatnapper'96
More Harding, less Za Lay House please.
Give 'em Hell, Cougars!!!
For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.
Not long ago an obituary appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune that said the recently departed had "died doing what he enjoyed most—watching BYU lose."
That was an ugly win. Offense was sloppy and lazy. Just when you think the team has turned the corner. Sheesh.
"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster
Still waiting for the bad conference loss this season and I thought last night was going to be it.
These USD games and USF at home are going to be big for how I feel about the season. If BYU wins out (except for Gonzaga two more times) and goes to the NIT then that’s not that bad of a year.
Yeah, the bad losses came in the out of conference schedule. They have played much better as of late, but still looked sucky on Saturday. Hopefully they will look more like the team that played at Portland.
Portland is getting worse by the minute. It will be surprising if Terry Porter can survive this.
Tomorrow's game is hugely important...well, as hugely important as it can be by this season's standards.
a NIT berth is on the line.
We need to get at least that. Next year is on the line as well, IMO.a NIT berth is on the line.
So much riding on one game!
"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster
Hey if we lock up the 2 seed I am not giving up on the extremely remote possibility we can string together 2 wins in the conference tourney and crash the dance. Yeah we haven't won a conference tournament in about 64 years and Gonzaga beats us by an average of about 200 points every time we play them in Vegas but screw the history. If I let that crap determine my support for the cougars I would have stopped paying attention long ago...or done something completely asinine like change my loyalty to the Longhorns.
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It's like 18 or so years since we won a conference tournament, isn't it? Roughly about the same length of time we went between NCAA tournament wins before we ended the drought in 2010.
Maybe the Zags will act like other conference tourney #1 seeds in so many other leagues and decide they don't care, and lose in the semis to USF or SMC.
Last edited by BlueK; 02-13-2019 at 11:57 AM.
Speaking of conference tournaments. I've never liked them much, probably in large part because when the WAC decided to have one starting in 1984, BYU was pathetic in it. We complain about Rose always losing the championship game. Well, year after year Ladell Andersen couldn't even win a single freaking game in the conference tournament. Every year but once BYU was one and done. He was 1-6, and I believe all those losses to teams seeded below them. The one win was that year when they won their first 17 or so games and almost got ranked #1 before their loss to UAB on the road. They had the #1 seed in the WAC tournament that year and were also hosting it. As the #1 seed they managed to get past last place Air Force in OT, I think, and then in usual fashion promptly lost the next game.
Last edited by BlueK; 02-13-2019 at 12:10 PM.
In 1988 BYU was clearly the best team in the WAC and lost to UTEP in the Marriott Center in the semis after squeaking by a horrible Hawaii team. So frustrating. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988...all_Tournament
No doubt that BYU has underachieved in conference tournaments — on the other hand we are due and Gonzaga has gotta be way overconfident at this point right?
Sorry, Hawaii it was. I was on my mission that season. So I actually never personally witnessed BYU winning a single WAC tournament game until the 90-91 season when under Roger Reid they beat Utah and won the whole thing. In the semis that was the game where they beat Hawaii on a last second shot by Scott Moon that bounced on the rim about seven times while the clock ran out before going in. I've never seen anything like it before or since. It was in Laramie and it was awesome hearing all the Wyoming and Utah fans booing while the BYU players and fans celebrated.In 1988 BYU was clearly the best team in the WAC and lost to UTEP in the Marriott Center in the semis after squeaking by a horrible Hawaii team. So frustrating. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988...all_Tournament
No doubt that BYU has underachieved in conference tournaments — on the other hand we are due and Gonzaga has gotta be way overconfident at this point right?
What about the next season when Kevin Nixon hit the half court+ shot at the buzzer to beat UTEP in the final in Fort Collins? Reid is the only coach we had who could win conference tournaments, but he needed some crazy finishes to do it.
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Cleveland won a tournament. Championship game was in Vegas. I was there!
"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster
I think BYU wins tonight.
I would prefer that result to the alternative.
"I think it was King Benjamin who said 'you sorry ass shitbags who have no skills that the market values also have an obligation to have the attitude that if one day you do in fact win the PowerBall Lottery that you will then impart of your substance to those without.'"
- Goatnapper'96
Way to fight back into it and have a chance at the end.
"What are you prepared to do?" - Jimmy Malone
"What choice?" - Abe Petrovsky
???
Why let the guy just run down and hit a lay-up?
"What are you prepared to do?" - Jimmy Malone
"What choice?" - Abe Petrovsky
I thought FT misses were going to do us in but way to gut out a crucial road win after being down 14 multiple times.
That was so frustrating. Rose calls a time out to set up that no defense, defensive scheme? Childs looked lost on that play.
Can't believe they were able to dominate in overtime like they did. This was a much needed win.
Solid win that they tried very hard to give away. The final defensive set in regulation was comical as has been mentioned, but let's discuss free throws. Look, I don't expect Luke to make free throws. Going 0-2 from the line in crunch time was expected and frankly I think we should show encouragement to him every time his sneakers are tied correctly and he's out there getting good exercise most importantly. I can deal with Yo going 1-2 - he's not a great shooter and certainly doesn't have a pure stroke. But for dudes like Seljaas to miss the front end of a crucial 1 and 1 and for Emery to brick the front end of what would've forced USD into a rushed 3 after going the length of the court is unacceptable. Unathletic white dudes have one job and that is to be great free throw shooters. Haws is really the only guy I trust to take critical foul shots and yet our team is full of unathletic white dudes. Cannon? 53% from the stripe. Emery? 72% Harding? 65%. You guys have one job.
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