My thoughts on the Wake game.......

[cougjunkie]

1. First and foremost the BYU fans and especially the student section represented last night, 23,000 fans that were loud all night long. That arena was absolutely electric. Some of the signs were also very well done. School is not even back in session yet and it was that full. Well done to cougar fans.

2. Wake is just flat out the better team. They are bigger, stronger, and more athletic. But we hung with them for 39 minutes.

3. I think Teague is an outstanding player and very quick, but so is everyone else in the NBA, so I am not as high on him as Rocky, I do think however that James Johnson is a lottery type player. He has the body of Lebron James, can hit from the outside, can jump out of the gym, and actually has a very nice midrange game. Oh and he is only 19.

4. JT had 3 wide open looks with under a minute and a half left to give us the lead and missed all 3, like RB said you could tell they were very gassed and just couldnt get enough lift.

5. Jimmer has recieved a ton of flack for his lack of quickness, well tonight he proved that he can play with anybody, he got in to the lane at will, took his man off the dribble whenever he wanted, and had some great finishes amongst the "trees".

6. Lee struggled tonight with his shot, but one thing that really has me pumped up for the rest of the season, is the fact that he was calling for the ball late in the game, and he was going hard. That post up and finish on Johnson was very nice. Lee wanted the ball in his hands, he was trying to take over. We have never seen that from Lee before.

7. The refs I thought were pretty fair, except during a small stretch (where the fans littered the floor with debris) BYU had an 8 point lead disappear in a hurry and it happened on 3 consecutive questionable calls.

8. Charles Abouos block at the end of the game on that dunk was clean. Charles also played outstanding defense once again, he is going to be special, Emery is another outstanding defender. BYU is going to reload and not rebuild for the next few years.

9. Doug Gottlieb on ESPN had nothing but praise for BYU last night, saying that first of all Wakes win was the best win in the country yesterday better than Pitt defeating Georgetown (So F*** YOU SeattleUte). He said Wake should be the number 3 team in the country and that he thinks they will upset UNC next week. He also said the Marriot Center is one of the toughest places to play in the country when its full, and that its not just 23,000 murmuring voices, its 23,000 loud and crazy fans. James Johnson of Wake said that they dont experience crouds like that even in the ACC and he wishes Wake fans would be like that.

10. Finally I think this team is going to be good and anything short of a tourney win is a huge disappointment. We have all the weapons this year. If we go through the conference at 13-3 or 14-2 like we have the past 2 years, that puts us at 25-5 or 26-4 heading in to the MWC tourney. We win two games there and we could realistically be 28-5 which would set us up nicely for a good seed. The only problem is we blew our 2 chances for signature wins.

[MarkGrace]

Aminu is also projected as a lotto pick. Wake has a ton of talent.

[Goatnapper'96]

1. First and foremost the BYU fans and especially the student section represented last night, 23,000 fans that were loud all night long. That arena was absolutely electric. Some of the signs were also very well done. School is not even back in session yet and it was that full. Well done to cougar fans.

2. Wake is just flat out the better team. They are bigger, stronger, and more athletic. But we hung with them for 39 minutes.

3. I think Teague is an outstanding player and very quick, but so is everyone else in the NBA, so I am not as high on him as Rocky, I do think however that James Johnson is a lottery type player. He has the body of Lebron James, can hit from the outside, can jump out of the gym, and actually has a very nice midrange game. Oh and he is only 19.

4. JT had 3 wide open looks with under a minute and a half left to give us the lead and missed all 3, like RB said you could tell they were very gassed and just couldnt get enough lift.

5. Jimmer has recieved a ton of flack for his lack of quickness, well tonight he proved that he can play with anybody, he got in to the lane at will, took his man off the dribble whenever he wanted, and had some great finishes amongst the "trees".

6. Lee struggled tonight with his shot, but one thing that really has me pumped up for the rest of the season, is the fact that he was calling for the ball late in the game, and he was going hard. That post up and finish on Johnson was very nice. Lee wanted the ball in his hands, he was trying to take over. We have never seen that from Lee before.

7. The refs I thought were pretty fair, except during a small stretch (where the fans littered the floor with debris) BYU had an 8 point lead disappear in a hurry and it happened on 3 consecutive questionable calls.

8. Charles Abouos block at the end of the game on that dunk was clean. Charles also played outstanding defense once again, he is going to be special, Emery is another outstanding defender. BYU is going to reload and not rebuild for the next few years.

9. Doug Gottlieb on ESPN had nothing but praise for BYU last night, saying that first of all Wakes win was the best win in the country yesterday better than Pitt defeating Georgetown (So F*** YOU SeattleUte). He said Wake should be the number 3 team in the country and that he thinks they will upset UNC next week. He also said the Marriot Center is one of the toughest places to play in the country when its full, and that its not just 23,000 murmuring voices, its 23,000 loud and crazy fans. James Johnson of Wake said that they dont experience crouds like that even in the ACC and he wishes Wake fans would be like that.

10. Finally I think this team is going to be good and anything short of a tourney win is a huge disappointment. We have all the weapons this year. If we go through the conference at 13-3 or 14-2 like we have the past 2 years, that puts us at 25-5 or 26-4 heading in to the MWC tourney. We win two games there and we could realistically be 28-5 which would set us up nicely for a good seed. The only problem is we blew our 2 chances for signature wins.

I think you hit some great points. I had an absolute blast. I bought 16 tickets for this thing and took two brother's in law. One brought 3 kids and the other 4. One is a big BYU fan and the other is ambivalent about sports teams but would prefer BYU. Both them and their kids had an absolute blast and cannot wait to go to another game......this leads to one of my two criticisms. Dammit, Rose I would rather lose to Wake than beat Western Oregon or the other crappy teams BYU plays. You coach an exciting brand of hoops and if you will get two-three good teams who also want to get up and down the court each year into the MC, it will be huge for the fans of your program. That loss did more for your home court advantage than every other homecourt win you had this year. We had a blast in an electric environment.

As for happy thoughts about how BYU played. I thought Chris Miles played with guts and toughness. He fouled out but the game was called extremely close. I thought the officiating was consistent and fair it is just that closely called games favor the team with more athletes and that was Wake. However, Miles battled. I just checked the stats and was surprised that he got only 4 boards. Between he and MacGregor I thought they did a good job on the Demon Deacons bigs. BYU out rebounded the DD and I was impressed with that aspect of BYU's play.

Fredette is a gamer. Period. He always has his best effort when the games are the biggest. He is one of the funnest to watch players BYU has had in years.

Abuou continues to impress. He is going to be a solid 3 year starter and I think the kid is going to be all conference type of player his junior and senior years. The thing is he is fearless. Going for that steal against Harden indicates that he totally trusts his ability and is not scared to do what he thinks he can on the floor. His offensive skills are catching up to his confidence and athleticism. He still doesn't make all the best decisions, but I think it is easier to develop that ability through experience than to develop confidence.

My only complaint about the way BYU played was the last couple of minutes. I would have rather seen BYU attack the hoop instead of settle for those 3's once it became obvious how exhausted our key players were. Saying that when we did attack at the end we got rejected.

Wake won because they just flat out had better players, and a lot of them. Their depth and athleticism just wore us down and in the end we were unable to equalize through the long jumper. Wake had some great players. I think they are a solid team that will get seeded no worse than 4-5 in the tourney, and I could see them as high as 2 if they can be the 2nd best team in the ACC. I think they will make the sweet 16. I still think this BYU team can win an NCAA game, but the soft scheduling might come back to bite BYU. I think if the Y played 4 solid teams instead of two BYU would have a solid win or two. Now BYU has no real solid wins to go with no bad losses. I think UNLV will provide us a couple of opportunities for a good win.

[byu71]

I really have mixed emotions on Tavernari. He hits big shot during a game, but he is like a big black hole at the end of the game. He seems to shoot even more. Of course Cummard missed some shots at the end too.

I agree with napper on scheduling. People might get into the habit of going if there are a few more games like this. Don't tell me people won't come and play. Utah has Gonzaga and LSU at home this year. Road losses aren't a big deal like they are in football.

[cougjunkie]

I agree with napper on scheduling. People might get into the habit of going if there are a few more games like this. Don't tell me people won't come and play. Utah has Gonzaga and LSU at home this year. Road losses aren't a big deal like they are in football.

Dave Rose addressed this on Sportsbeat two weeks ago. He said that instead of Western Oregon they tried to schedule a BCS type team, and they could not get anyone to come to the MC. He said they are kind of a limbo team right now, where they are in the 35-45 range in terms of ranking. So a loss by a top team at the MC still looks bad, and a win really doesnt help. He said if they can consistently crack the top 25 they can get more good teams because losses amongst top 25 teams dont hurt as bad.

[jay santos]

Dave Rose addressed this on Sportsbeat two weeks ago. He said that instead of Western Oregon they tried to schedule a BCS type team, and they could not get anyone to come to the MC. He said they are kind of a limbo team right now, where they are in the 35-45 range in terms of ranking. So a loss by a top team at the MC still looks bad, and a win really doesnt help. He said if they can consistently crack the top 25 they can get more good teams because losses amongst top 25 teams dont hurt as bad.

When you look at how Boylen is scheduling and who he is getting to come to the HC, then it's tough for me to believe this stuff about not being able to schedule.

[cougjunkie]

When you look at how Boylen is scheduling and who he is getting to come to the HC, then it's tough for me to believe this stuff about not being able to schedule.

Utah is a name and they are beatable at home. There is a difference between the two schools right now.

How often did Big Rick get big name teams to come to the HC?