Utah. BYU. Enough said. - Official Game Thread

[FountainOfUte]

Your game recap a page or two back was a thing of beauty. :rofl:

[Old Standing ute]

I agree with nearly everything here - especially about TD Croshaw destroying the Provo mystique that Yergensen cracked open.

I also agree that Delon is a once in a generation Ute. He is so fluid and solid with the ball. He is not a take-charge guy, but I'm over that - as long as he is the most efficient player in the land, that's cool. He is slowly climbing my list of favorite all-time running Utes, approaching KVH, Bogut, Doleac, and Darroll Wright (sorry, i loved that guy in the 90s). He'll never catch Andre, of course. It's going to be a fun year with this guy.

As for the end of game jitters, they are going to cost us this year. Fortunately, we are a better team than last year so we're going to kill a lot of people so the end of the game won't matter. But if it's close near the end, our combination of (a) atrocious foul shooting, (b) insanely soft cross-court passes, and (c) general fear make us the big underdog. I don't know if this is a coaching thing or a player thing, but I'm leaning towards the latter. I think we have a bunch of good ballers who are also good guys, but there is no cutthroat on this team.

Some player notes:

- B Taylor: tough shooting night to say the least. I love this guy and thought he really nutted up on Haws - made his life miserable. That's what we really needed out of him. And those two missed free throws at the end? As Rasheed would say "ball don't lie" - that was a total flop.

- Ogbe: I'm still waiting for Kenneth to show me that he is a smart basketball player. Right now, he has the look and feel of a good player, but he makes really poor decisions with the ball. I'm hoping the game slows down for him at some point.

- Bach: I thought he gave us great energy again. He's a bit of a bonehead (dribbling across the timeline!>>!>!>!??), but he hustles, hits the offensive glass and hits foul shots. He's our crunch time center until JakPot learns to shoot foul shots.

- JakPot: Worst game I've seen him play. BYU had the luxury of having their bigs focus 100% on stopping him, and they did. He's going to get played really physical until he learns how to play thru contact.

- Reyes: Jury is still out for me on this guy. I just don't see what he adds. Yet.

- Brekkott: I missed the first 10 minutes of the game when he was lighting it up, apparently. But I liked his game even though I never saw him score. He got a lot of freshman fouls, but he'll clean that up. He's our headiest big man and our best passer outside of Delon. I'm stoked for his career.

- Kuzma: The kid has no fear. He took a couple of shots that had me screaming NONONONONONONO. Some of them even went in. But the kid is not a shooter - that shot is just SO ugly. He needs to ditch the 3 ball.

- Dakarai: Not his best game either, but I thought he had some nice moments, especially on the defensive side of the ball. He followed the game plan of switching to a double team on every Collinsworth or Haws pick and roll. The game is coming to him much easier now. He forced a few 3s, but we probably needed that last night. He also did a great job on the defensive glass (where we dominated, btw).

- Isaiah: His inexperience was on display. A couple of drives with nowhere to go ended in turnovers and his 3-point attempt was a solid brick. I'm surprised by how big he is, though. I'm still confident that he'll be a player, but this year will be a learning experience.

- JLover: This was the first game where we really missed Loveridge. Wichita State would not have been a good matchup for him, but he would have really settled us down last night. We needed that extra shooter to stretch the zone and he would have been fine on defense. In fact, the only mismatch BYU exploited was when they brought in Anson Winder and got him switched on to Bach. Loveridge, who is not a defender, would have been a could match for Anson - undersized 4s who shoot 3s are his thing. It will be really nice to have him back for Pac-12 play (fingers crossed).

Lastly, great defensive game plan by Tommy Co. Doubling on the pick and roll with Tyler Haws is absolutely the way to go - the kid is a shooter, but I can't remember a single time he passed with purpose. Every team that plays BYU should double Haws coming off a screen. Then, we would switch if Collinsworth was running the PnR, unless he ran it with a big man in which case the big man would hedge and then fall back. BYU's bigs are so inept on offense that they are really no threat to catch on the roll. Let's work on that zone offense now.

Really lastly, Sancho, do you believe me about BYU's inbounds plays now? Their best offense came from inbounding on the baseline. They hit a couple of threes out of those sets and had a couple of nice looks for Haws which he missed. They also had a wide open layup for some doofus big man who blew the layup. I actually liked some of our inbound sets - we're still a little jittery and don't pull the trigger on the pass like we should, but they were better last night.

Agree that maybe the players on our team are just too nice---met a few, they are really decent to talk to.

We don't have per Larry K--any turds in the punch-bowl---maybe we need one?

Kuzma is a weird player--loves to score, but you are right a really, really ugly shot.

Fun win--not a big Dave Rose fan, but he must be a good coach being able to win having to play all the stiffs they ran out there.

[LA Ute]

Fun win--not a big Dave Rose fan, but he must be a good coach being able to win having to play all the stiffs they ran out there.

Honestly, this game has been the first time I've ever seen Dave Rose praised by anyone for his team's defensive effort. He must've done something right this time.

[Solon]

Honestly, this game has been the first time I've ever seen Dave Rose praised by anyone for his team's defensive effort. He must've done something right this time.
I think the byu accomplished a lot of its gameplan with respect to shutting down Utah's offense.

If you had told me a week ago that we'd be missing Loveridge, that the byu would hold Poetl to 6 points, and that Taylor would shoot 1-7 with 3 points (& go 0-2 at the line), I would have predicted a Utah loss.

As it was, the Cougs made it a game, but the Utes controlled the action for the most part. This is a testament to the team's depth, I guess.

[LA Ute]

I think the byu accomplished a lot of its gameplan with respect to shutting down Utah's offense.

If you had told me a week ago that we'd be missing Loveridge, that the byu would hold Poetl to 6 points, and that Taylor would shoot 1-7 with 3 points (& go 0-2 at the line), I would have predicted a Utah loss.

As it was, the Cougs made it a game, but the Utes controlled the action for the most part. This is a testament to the team's depth, I guess.

And their indefatigability.

[Solon]

And their indefatigability.

And their ground hominy.

[NorthwestUteFan]

And their ground hominy.

The Cougars' collective hair style is due to their Spunk (that's not hair gel...)

[LA Ute]

I noticed that on CougarStadium the consensus seems to be that Collinsworth and Delon are pretty much equal. That is kind of a startling thought but I don't know much about Collinsworth.

[Diehard Ute]

I noticed that on CougarStadium the consensus seems to be that Collinsworth and Delon are pretty much equal. That is kind of a startling thought but I don't know much about Collinsworth.

He's a good player but let's compare stats

Delon
2014 15.4 PPG 58% FG 39% 3pt and 77% FT
5.5 R, 4.9 A, 1.8 Steals 1.2 blocks. 16 TO A/T0 2.4

Collinsworth
2014 13.6 PPG 46% FG 36% 3pt and 72% FT
7.1R, 5.7 A, 2.4 Steals 0.6 blocks 32 TO A/TO 1.6

Collinsworth gets more rebounds but also doesn't have a player like Poeltl eating up boards.

He also has more assists but far more turnovers. For their careers the assist to turnover ratios are similar. (And I'd venture having Haws to pass to helps Collinsworth quite a bit in the assist department)

Delon, from the stats, appears to be much more efficient. Delon has 1 more point despite 1 less game and fewer FGA and FTA. (These stats are also similar for their college careers, it's not just this yeae)

They're both good players but to say they're the same seems to ignore a few things.

[Scratch]

You also can't compare bulk game stats because BYU has so many more possessions per game. Wright has the advantage in PER, TS%, eFG%, AST%, STL%, BLK%, TOV%, ORtg, and most importantly WS. Virtually everying when you look at rate stats. And that doesn't come close to capturing the difference in defensive value. It isn't close at all.

[Applejack]

You also can't compare bulk game stats because BYU has so many more possessions per game. Wright has the advantage in PER, TS%, eFG%, AST%, STL%, BLK%, TOV%, ORtg, and most importantly WS. Virtually everying when you look at rate stats. And that doesn't come close to capturing the difference in defensive value. It isn't close at all.

The defensive part ends the discussion. They are pretty similar offensive players - neither can shoot jumpers (Kyle is a little bit better) and both are really good distributors, rebounders, and finishers (delon is a little bit better). But on defense, delon is an elite team defender and an excellent one-on-one defender. Kyle gets taken to the rack by kuzma.

If one was only considering offense, you could make a decent case for either player. If you include defense, there is no debate.

[LA Ute]

The defensive part ends the discussion. They are pretty similar offensive players - neither can shoot jumpers (Kyle is a little bit better) and both are really good distributors, rebounders, and finishers (delon is a little bit better). But on defense, delon is an elite team defender and an excellent one-on-one defender. Kyle gets taken to the rack by kuzma.

If one was only considering offense, you could make a decent case for either player. If you include defense, there is no debate.

But for BYU players defense doesn't matter.

[UtahsMrSports]

lol, I love BYUtv.........the only thing that would have made this better is if it was Dave "I dont know the rules here!" McCann and Blaine Fowler calling the game.

http://www.byutv.org/watch/0c073cb2-e0ab-4d9c-bf72-c6cfefdd34c3/basketball-m-utah-vs-byu-121014

[sancho]

The defensive part ends the discussion. They are pretty similar offensive players - neither can shoot jumpers (Kyle is a little bit better) and both are really good distributors, rebounders, and finishers (delon is a little bit better). But on defense, delon is an elite team defender and an excellent one-on-one defender. Kyle gets taken to the rack by kuzma.

If one was only considering offense, you could make a decent case for either player. If you include defense, there is no debate.

It's tough to compare the two with numbers because styles and competition are so different, but Collinsworth is really good. Basically, he's a poor man's Delon, which is still really good.

Delon has another thing going for him over Collinsworth - he radiates cool. He's amazing to watch. Smooth and sneaky. The Euro step, the surprise blocked shots, the rebounds.

[sancho]

I noticed that on CougarStadium

If I had more friends around here, we would organize an intervention for you to help you drop this bad habit.

[Scorcho]

Wright could have better numbers if he played 20 games in the under 6' 5" WCC?

[LA Ute]

If I had more friends around here, we would organize an intervention for you to help you drop this bad habit.

I look at sports threads there only if they relate to Utah. I especially enjoy them after a BYU loss to Utah.