BYU Basketball 24-25-Bring out the Jelly!

[Bo Diddley]

That's fun to see. Thanks for all the work you put in on this.

[LiveCoug]

Awesome stuff. Also, way too much Utah in good areas of those charts

[Pelado]

Feel like AJ should have a dedicated thread, but here's a cool article about him in The Athletic:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/599...shared-article

[Pelado]

Feels like forever ago that there was a game, but BYU opens up conference play today. Here's how they currently stand:

NET: 46
KenPom: 43
ESPN BPI: 32
BPI Resume: 65
Faktor KPI: 79
AP: NR
Coaches: NR

Record against Quad 1: 0-2
Quad 2: 0-0
Quad 3: 3-0
Quad 4: 6-0

Games remaining against Quad 1: 12
Quad 2: 6
Quad 3: 2
Quad 4: 0

ESPN's BPI predictor model gives BYU a 79.0% chance to win the game against Arizona State today (NET: 51, KenPom 55), predicting a margin of 8.3 points. It's ranked 7th of the games today in "Matchup Quality".

For Saturday's game at Houston (NET: 5, KenPom: 4), BPI projects an 88.1% chance of a Houston victory, with an expected margin of 12.5 points. It's ranked 5th of the day's games in "Matchup Quality".

For the tournament projections, BPI currently shows BYU with the following chances:
Round of 32: 48.2%
Sweet 16: 19.3%
Elite 8: 7.2%
Final 4: 2.5%
Title game: 0.8%
Champion: 0.2%

They are listed as the 31st highest odds of winning the tournament. Big 12 teams with better odds:
Houston - 16.5%
Kansas - 4.3%
Iowa State - 3.6%
Arizona - 2.9%
Baylor - 1.6%
Texas Tech - 1.1%
Cincinnati - 1.0%

[Joe Public]

Welcome to the Big 12, Sun Devils!

Richie lit it up, and the defense was solid. Demin struggled, but he may need some time to get back into the swing of things after his injury.

Also, Catchings is a baby-faced assassin. He’s starting to look to drive when it’s there instead of always shooting the 3, and he’s not afraid to jaw back at the opponent a bit, too.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Welcome to the Big 12, Sun Devils!

Richie lit it up, and the defense was solid. Demin struggled, but he may need some time to get back into the swing of things after his injury.

Also, Catchings is a baby-faced assassin. He’s starting to look to drive when it’s there instead of always shooting the 3, and he’s not afraid to jaw back at the opponent a bit, too.

That was a really fun game. Yeah, it was great to see the team start playing better defense. I hope it keeps going.

Keita had a great game. Shot blocks and rebounding.

Demin definitely looked rusty. But zero rust on Richie. Holy cow, what a game. Love that kid.

[byufan4ever]

Conference play in year 2 of the Big 12 starts off a lot better than it did last season. BYU beats Arizona St by 20. With a fully healthy squad, BYU looked really dangerous. Boskovic didn't make an appearance. I don't know if that was due to injury or he just doesn't deserve the minutes right now. One note about the broadcast, I watched the game on replay on ESPN+ and half the time ESPN cut out the commercials themselves and I didn't even have to skip through them. Even halftime was missing from the replay. Quote of the game: "There was no wedgie that time!" Oh and ASU's coach, what a tool. He's widely known for complaining about 99% of calls and for having one of the filthiest mouths out of all of the coaches. I'm not losing any sleep over that double T.

Player of the Game goes to Richie Saunders, for the first time this season, which is kind of surprising. He had the best PER and GSc. I was really impressed by his balance of 3P and 2P shooting. And no TOs. Ketia had the highest TS% and I was really hoping that he'd get at least one more point to get a double-double. I think it was Catchings who missed an opportunity to throw it up to him for an easy ally-oop.

Struggled to Perform goes to Trevin Knell. His only points came from ASU's dumb defenders fouling him, not once, but twice on 3 point attempts. He had a wide open shot at the free throw line, and instead threw a bad pass and got a TO. Egor had the worst TS%. Either he was rusty or still not 100% healthy. He had 7 assists, but also 5 TOs. A potential top 3 draftee has to play better than this.

BYU is now 10-2 (1-0) and #34 in Kenpom and was #46 in NET prior to today. ASU is now #61 in Kenpom and was #51 in NET. As long as they stay within #75, this will be a Q2 win. Up next is Houston, who is 9-3 (1-0), #14 in the AP, #3 in Kenpom, and #5 in NET. Let's go get our first Q1 win!

12 ASU.png

[Clark Addison]

Conference play in year 2 of the Big 12 starts off a lot better than it did last season. BYU beats Arizona St by 20. With a fully healthy squad, BYU looked really dangerous. Boskovic didn't make an appearance. I don't know if that was due to injury or he just doesn't deserve the minutes right now. One note about the broadcast, I watched the game on replay on ESPN+ and half the time ESPN cut out the commercials themselves and I didn't even have to skip through them. Even halftime was missing from the replay. Quote of the game: "There was no wedgie that time!" Oh and ASU's coach, what a tool. He's widely known for complaining about 99% of calls and for having one of the filthiest mouths out of all of the coaches. I'm not losing any sleep over that double T.

Player of the Game goes to Richie Saunders, for the first time this season, which is kind of surprising. He had the best PER and GSc. I was really impressed by his balance of 3P and 2P shooting. And no TOs. Ketia had the highest TS% and I was really hoping that he'd get at least one more point to get a double-double. I think it was Catchings who missed an opportunity to throw it up to him for an easy ally-oop.

Struggled to Perform goes to Trevin Knell. His only points came from ASU's dumb defenders fouling him, not once, but twice on 3 point attempts. He had a wide open shot at the free throw line, and instead threw a bad pass and got a TO. Egor had the worst TS%. Either he was rusty or still not 100% healthy. He had 7 assists, but also 5 TOs. A potential top 3 draftee has to play better than this.

BYU is now 10-2 (1-0) and #34 in Kenpom and was #46 in NET prior to today. ASU is now #61 in Kenpom and was #51 in NET. As long as they stay within #75, this will be a Q2 win. Up next is Houston, who is 9-3 (1-0), #14 in the AP, #3 in Kenpom, and #5 in NET. Let's go get our first Q1 win!

12 ASU.png

I rarely respond to these game summaries but just want to be on the record that I love them.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I rarely respond to these game summaries but just want to be on the record that I love them.

What he said...

[Joe Public]

For the conference rotation, it looks like it will tighten to a nine-man main group of:

Demin
Catchings
Saunders
Hall
Keita
Fous
Knell
Baker
Mag

The last three may see minutes ebb and flow based on whether the situation calls for more perimeter shooting (Knell), driving to the basket (Baker), or defense (Mag).

After that, Stewart and Crawford seem to be the next layer on the bench. I hope Crawford continues to get some minutes - he seems like the future at PG and has a lot to offer IMO. I don’t think Stewart will play very much in conference. Maybe Boskovic is in this layer just because he’s a big, but he played poorly overall in the nonconference part of the schedule and didn’t see the floor yesterday. (I am bullish on him over the long term.)

The rest of the bench doesn’t seem to be in line to see the court outside of the last two minutes of a blowout.

[byufan4ever]

For the conference rotation, it looks like it will tighten to a nine-man main group of:

Demin
Catchings
Saunders
Hall
Keita
Fous
Knell
Baker
Mag

The last three may see minutes ebb and flow based on whether the situation calls for more perimeter shooting (Knell), driving to the basket (Baker), or defense (Mag).

After that, Stewart and Crawford seem to be the next layer on the bench. I hope Crawford continues to get some minutes - he seems like the future at PG and has a lot to offer IMO. I don’t think Stewart will play very much in conference. Maybe Boskovic is in this layer just because he’s a big, but he played poorly overall in the nonconference part of the schedule and didn’t see the floor yesterday. (I am bullish on him over the long term.)

The rest of the bench doesn’t seem to be in line to see the court outside of the last two minutes of a blowout.

Realize that Boskovic is classified as a junior and only has one more season of elgibility left. I'm a bit disapointed in him because it looks like a raw freshman with huge upside, but in reality he's had 2+ seasons of professional basketball overseas.

[falafel]

For the conference rotation, it looks like it will tighten to a nine-man main group of:

Demin
Catchings
Saunders
Hall
Keita
Fous
Knell
Baker
Mag

The last three may see minutes ebb and flow based on whether the situation calls for more perimeter shooting (Knell), driving to the basket (Baker), or defense (Mag).

After that, Stewart and Crawford seem to be the next layer on the bench. I hope Crawford continues to get some minutes - he seems like the future at PG and has a lot to offer IMO. I don’t think Stewart will play very much in conference. Maybe Boskovic is in this layer just because he’s a big, but he played poorly overall in the nonconference part of the schedule and didn’t see the floor yesterday. (I am bullish on him over the long term.)

The rest of the bench doesn’t seem to be in line to see the court outside of the last two minutes of a blowout.

I agree with your top 9.

Boslkovic has been a bummer so far. I expected more from someone who has spent to much time playing international ball.

[Pelado]

I agree with your top 9.

Boslkovic has been a bummer so far. I expected more from someone who has spent to much time playing international ball.

Same. I expected him to play much better than he has. I thought he would be at least as effective as Waterman was last year.

[Goatnapper'96]

I went down to watch the ASU game. Best game of the year. Much improved defense. Offense was shaky but between Demin's rustiness and what I think has been an emphasis and time spent in practice on the defensive side of the court that was not surprising. Richie's best game at BYU and and Catchings was solid but I thought the rest struggled. I love the decision to play Mag over Boscovich. Boscovich has the athletic ability and skill, and has demonstrated at other levels he can play the game well, but for whatever reasons he just can't find it at BYU so far. Barring injury Mag has taken most of his minutes and he is out of the 9 man rotation for this year-I kind of expect he will go back to Europe and pursue a pro career there as while I think he could contribute at BYU next year I don't think the NBA is a likely and reasonable destination for him. Regardless, I am all in on Mag and what I think he will be able to do to help BYU the rest of this season.

For those who watched the game on TV-how bad was Catching's travel on that great move in the first half along the baseline just in front of the ASU bench? That move seriously made my nipples hard-even with the travel. I hope BYU can keep him a 2nd year cuz that kid is a fabulous 2 way basketball player.

Onto Houston. This is a great game for us. We are playing with house money. Very little pressure for us to win but competing well and learning to deal with physical in your face defense is what this team needs. I am interested how we respond.

I will say that IMO the improvements on the defensive end are the first indicator I have seen on the court that KY can be a good coach at this college level. Obviously, he has the executive skills, and financial backing, to put pieces in place. But bringing the pieces together on the court was not something I could see much of until Tuesday. Obviously, it will be a couple of years before we really have an idea if he can really coach, but as one looking for indicators I thought Tuesday was a step forward. Most of what I saw in the other games I went to was BYU just winning because we had much better players-but on Tuesday BYU's defense caused more problems for ASU than BYU's talent. Lets build on this trend against Houston-regardless of outcome.

[Pelado]

For those who watched the game on TV-how bad was Catching's travel on that great move in the first half along the baseline just in front of the ASU bench? That move seriously made my nipples hard-even with the travel. I hope BYU can keep him a 2nd year cuz that kid is a fabulous 2 way basketball player.

I didn't see the travel even after my own instant replay. It was a really quick whistle, I think the official may have been anticipating something that didn't happen.