Very very fun game.
1. How gutsy was that for Rose to bench Jimmer in the key stretch of the second half when Morgan is already out of the game. Forget Bronco's balls, Goat (or is it Bronco's penis that's big I forget). Rose is the BYU coach with the big ones.
2. Hartsock, what a stud. This team is becoming complete with the emergence of Miles and Hartsock. Hartsock lacks in athleticism (what's with being stuffed by UNLV's shortest player on a layup??--and it wasn't a foul it was a clean block)
3. Miles. He's also coming around. He needs to get more time. I understand Rose wanted to go smaller late in the second half, but I would have liked to see Miles play more minutes that game. He was a man posessed for a stretch in the second half. It was like Bruce Banner starting to turn green. Whoa big fella, I like the intensity but calm down dude you're going to explode. I love it. The matchup might not have worked in his favor against UNLV's athletic bigs, but I see Miles becoming a strength on this team down the stretch. He really looks like he's in the process of turning the corner. Davies is not quite ready for prime time. He needs to get in his 12 minutes a game to continue to develop, but Miles is the man.
4. Reffing--it wasn't one sided and the ref's did a decent job, but man I've never seen a game so permissively called. It's a bloodbath and you look up with a 6 minutes left in each half and both teams have 2 fouls??!!
5. UNLV's defense. I'm so jealous. I love how they play. The are hard. We are soft. Fellas, that's how you play D. UNLV gives concussions and bloodies noses. We reach out and tap you on a layup to give you an "and 1". Maybe this team needs some boxing cross training.
6. Our D. Although, that said about how soft we are, we finally looked good with the lineup Hartsock-JT-Charles-Jackson-Loyd. That's a nice looking defensive team. Rose said he moved from jump switching the ball screens to straight switching and it worked wonders. I think he finally figured out how to defend UNLV. I also liked switching to the zone when he brought back in Jimmer, because Jimmer was absolutely killing us on defense all night. With UNLV's weakness in outside shooting (except for going 4/4 for 14 points on outside shots to start the second half bastards), I wouldn't mind seeing the zone a little more often against them, but in their gym for the return game probably best to stick to man.
7. Abouo. Last game the D2 game Abouo was completely mentally absent. I don't know if his girlfriend just broke up with him or if he was upset about not starting with Jimmer and Jax out of the lineup, but he was awful. He made at least 10 mental mistakes in his limited time. Dumb passes, dumb shots, dumb dribbling errors, not paying attention on D, it was just really odd. Then he comes back in this game and played a nice role as a defender in the straight switching experiment. Rose said in post game he had guys in the game Hartsock, JT, Charles that can guard both a big man and a little man and decided to change it up. Loyd in the post game after Eastern NM was asked "who on this team is not reaching his full potential that the fans don't know about yet but will break out in the future?" Loyd didn't pause "Charles". He said Charles is the fastest player on the team and dominates in practice. He played point guard on his summer team that played internationally and worked hard on his game and outside shot. He'll be a future star. I agree. It's at least a year away maybe even two, but Charles' time will come. And he's nice to have in games like this where we need an athletic defender. I actually wonder if with Rose's style of going small, if Charles could actually play some 4 on this team. Let Davies play 12 minutes behind Miles. Let Charles play 12 minutes behind Noah. And let JT play most of his minutes at the wing.
8. Loyd. Fantastic play the last two games. He's not getting a lot of time with the stars ahead of him and Morgan's solid play, but I like him also. He'll round out a fabulous guard threesome next year playing backup at both 1 and 2, and then he'll start at point his senior season. Solid guards lined up for the Cougs for seasons to come.
9. I'm forecasting a UTEP win and a MWC 13-3 season, preserving our ranking until the end of the year, maybe back and forth out of the top 25 with a loss, but finishing around #20. If we win the MWC tourney, we go in 27-4 or whatever and probably a 4 seed. If we lose the MWC tourney, we go in 26-5 and maybe a 6-7 seed. Either way, I'm calling it now. Rose gets the monkey off his back with a tourney win. If we get a 5 seed or better, we go sweet 16, even though I'm told that's essentially impossible unless your program has a prior tourney run within the last 10-15 years.
1. How gutsy was that for Rose to bench Jimmer in the key stretch of the second half when Morgan is already out of the game. Forget Bronco's balls, Goat (or is it Bronco's penis that's big I forget). Rose is the BYU coach with the big ones.
2. Hartsock, what a stud. This team is becoming complete with the emergence of Miles and Hartsock. Hartsock lacks in athleticism (what's with being stuffed by UNLV's shortest player on a layup??--and it wasn't a foul it was a clean block)
3. Miles. He's also coming around. He needs to get more time. I understand Rose wanted to go smaller late in the second half, but I would have liked to see Miles play more minutes that game. He was a man posessed for a stretch in the second half. It was like Bruce Banner starting to turn green. Whoa big fella, I like the intensity but calm down dude you're going to explode. I love it. The matchup might not have worked in his favor against UNLV's athletic bigs, but I see Miles becoming a strength on this team down the stretch. He really looks like he's in the process of turning the corner. Davies is not quite ready for prime time. He needs to get in his 12 minutes a game to continue to develop, but Miles is the man.
4. Reffing--it wasn't one sided and the ref's did a decent job, but man I've never seen a game so permissively called. It's a bloodbath and you look up with a 6 minutes left in each half and both teams have 2 fouls??!!
5. UNLV's defense. I'm so jealous. I love how they play. The are hard. We are soft. Fellas, that's how you play D. UNLV gives concussions and bloodies noses. We reach out and tap you on a layup to give you an "and 1". Maybe this team needs some boxing cross training.
6. Our D. Although, that said about how soft we are, we finally looked good with the lineup Hartsock-JT-Charles-Jackson-Loyd. That's a nice looking defensive team. Rose said he moved from jump switching the ball screens to straight switching and it worked wonders. I think he finally figured out how to defend UNLV. I also liked switching to the zone when he brought back in Jimmer, because Jimmer was absolutely killing us on defense all night. With UNLV's weakness in outside shooting (except for going 4/4 for 14 points on outside shots to start the second half bastards), I wouldn't mind seeing the zone a little more often against them, but in their gym for the return game probably best to stick to man.
7. Abouo. Last game the D2 game Abouo was completely mentally absent. I don't know if his girlfriend just broke up with him or if he was upset about not starting with Jimmer and Jax out of the lineup, but he was awful. He made at least 10 mental mistakes in his limited time. Dumb passes, dumb shots, dumb dribbling errors, not paying attention on D, it was just really odd. Then he comes back in this game and played a nice role as a defender in the straight switching experiment. Rose said in post game he had guys in the game Hartsock, JT, Charles that can guard both a big man and a little man and decided to change it up. Loyd in the post game after Eastern NM was asked "who on this team is not reaching his full potential that the fans don't know about yet but will break out in the future?" Loyd didn't pause "Charles". He said Charles is the fastest player on the team and dominates in practice. He played point guard on his summer team that played internationally and worked hard on his game and outside shot. He'll be a future star. I agree. It's at least a year away maybe even two, but Charles' time will come. And he's nice to have in games like this where we need an athletic defender. I actually wonder if with Rose's style of going small, if Charles could actually play some 4 on this team. Let Davies play 12 minutes behind Miles. Let Charles play 12 minutes behind Noah. And let JT play most of his minutes at the wing.
8. Loyd. Fantastic play the last two games. He's not getting a lot of time with the stars ahead of him and Morgan's solid play, but I like him also. He'll round out a fabulous guard threesome next year playing backup at both 1 and 2, and then he'll start at point his senior season. Solid guards lined up for the Cougs for seasons to come.
9. I'm forecasting a UTEP win and a MWC 13-3 season, preserving our ranking until the end of the year, maybe back and forth out of the top 25 with a loss, but finishing around #20. If we win the MWC tourney, we go in 27-4 or whatever and probably a 4 seed. If we lose the MWC tourney, we go in 26-5 and maybe a 6-7 seed. Either way, I'm calling it now. Rose gets the monkey off his back with a tourney win. If we get a 5 seed or better, we go sweet 16, even though I'm told that's essentially impossible unless your program has a prior tourney run within the last 10-15 years.
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