Point Blank – November 30, 2016
Tonight the “wusses” are in action again…The next dive gets taken with the Packers…Pops will be digging his spurs into the hide of some players…
For all of the vagaries and idiosyncrasies surrounding the game reviews on the gridirons each weekend, many of which make there way into this pages, early-season college hoops are even more unique, so many out of the way settings bringing special circumstances into play. It is not possible to cover every team from every conference, there not being nearly enough hours in the day, but when a player calls out his teammates for being “wusses”, then it is time to explore.
Item: BYU returns to the court
Whether you are doing detailed charting across the hardwoods or not, you may have seen a score flashed this past weekend that caused some head scratching – Utah Valley 114 BYU 101. Since it was not on the board it would not have been a focus point, and you may have thought it was some kind of error – perhaps the score from a women’s game that got inserted into the mix. But it was real, and hence became the subject of a serious post mortem that will lead to some interesting follow-up this evening, when BYU plays Utah State in Salt Lake City.
First note that for Dave Rose and his program playing Utah Valley isn’t necessarily a good idea. The Wolverines may only be in their second season in the WAC, but instead of being a chance to pick up an easy non-conference win for the Cougars these settings bring the prospect of being a nuisance – the two campuses are only about seven miles apart, and for the Utah Valley players it can be billed as their biggest game of the year. Adding to that notion this time around is that HC Mark Pope was a former BYU assistant, and did not even have to move when switching jobs, and that BYU transfer Isaac Nielson certainly brought some fire on Saturday, scoring 26 points (Nielson’s take - "Honestly, it is one of the greatest nights of my life. This means a lot to me, and it means a lot to our team. Our whole mantra is 'Shock the World,' and I think we did that tonight.")
But enough on Utah Valley, since the Wolverines won’t be on the board, and need not occupy our handicapping conscience all that much. Just note that while it was indeed a huge upset, there was enough substance there to not completely downgrade BYU. It is how one of the Cougars downgraded his own team that comes front and center now. Nick Emery scored 37 points in Saturday’s loss, then called his team wusses.
“It is just a [matter of] being tougher, man. We’re a bunch of wusses out there right now, and that’s not how you’re going to win games. We can’t put this BYU jersey on and win games, just because we’re BYU. It takes a lot more than that.”
Naturally that got circled, and the Cougars go under the microscope now. But instead of the expectation of a bounce-back for the team that took the slap in the face to immediately play better it raised a real question – what if Rose’s team are wusses right now? The HC was open about that following the upset loss -
"We kind of got flustered. A real issue with our team the last two games is trying to keep our composure. I think that's a real challenge for young teams, especially young teams that have a lot of expectations. This was the first instate game that a lot of these young guys have actually been in. And I don't think they really understood the intensity or the consistent all-out urgency of this game."
BYU, playing at home in front of 16,003 fans, got “flustered” by Utah Valley. Hence no particular hurry to back this bunch to have the maturity to handle tonight’s pressure. Can the problems be corrected? The comments from Rose on Tuesday, after a couple of days of practice, don’t necessarily bring a lot of confidence –
“With a young team, especially, it’s our job to get them back on the right path. The bottom line is, the whole focus with this group will be that we’ve got to defend better, we’ve got to play harder, we’ve got to respect loose balls and rebounds. We have to have a more urgent attitude towards playing that part of the game. Sometimes that happens with talented guys. They feel like they can always make up for it on the next play. In reality, you can’t.”
Five of the top seven players in the BYU rotation are freshmen or sophomores. They have the ball skills the program has become known for in terms of shooting and passing, but Rose’s teams have never also never been known for their defensive technique or tenacity, which might make this group even more vulnerable in those areas. There is a lot to see tonight, and while there will likely not be an investment involved, there can be something learned to help define the Cougars going forward.
Survivor Pool Week #13
The number of folks still left afloat gets thin now, as do the options. But there is a window out there for the next few weeks that can sequence pretty well, and it starts this week with the GREEN BAY PACKERS, who not only got a badly needed win on Monday, but got it the way that they needed to. Forget about the fact that James Starks only gained 41 yards on 17 carries – it was the mere fact that there was a legit NFL running back in the offense that helped to set up everything else, Rodgers finding Nelson/Cobb/Adams 19 times for 245 yards. Getting some healthy bodies back on defense also matters.
So here comes the window – the Packers are the fit this Sunday, and then some big favorites with Detroit/Chicago and Atlanta/San Francisco the following two weeks. There is also the holding back of Pittsburgh/Cleveland for Week #17, especially if the Steelers are still alive for a playoff spot, so there is an end-game gambit out there, outside of a dicey Week #16 (that card will take some work, though I can see a prospect or two).
Week #1 – Kansas City
Week #2 – Carolina
Week #3 – Miami
Week #4 – Washington
Week #5 – New England
Week #6 – Tennessee
Week #7 – Cincinnati
Week #8 – Denver
Week #9 – Seattle
Week #10 – Arizona
Week #11 – NY Giants
Week #12 – New Orleans
Week #13 – GREEN BAY
In the Sights, Wednesday NBA…
One of the prime concepts across all sports is something that does not come up nearly enough, but works well when it does – many bad teams are even worse than they appear to be, but get breaks on the scoreboards and in the box scores because the opposition doesn’t take them seriously. Dallas is currently one such team, but the Spurs will take the Mavericks seriously tonight, especially in the early stages, and that leads to #513 San Antonio First Half (8:35 Eastern), with -4.5 easy to find in the morning trading, and this one good to -5.
First to set the scoreboard/statistical stage, the struggling Mavs will show a solid result at San Antonio last week, only falling 96-91. One shouldn’t attach much merit to it, with Gregg Popovich using the game as the opportunity to give LaMarcus Aldridge and Tony Parker an evening off, which goes back to the base concept. But tonight’s focus will be much different. The Spurs were bad in so many different ways last night – season high turnovers, season high shooting percentage allowed, season low of points, etc. – that this becomes an evening in which the whip gets cracked, and given how well San Antonio has played on the road this season, a 10-0 SU and 7-2-1 ATS, both spread losses coming by a half point, this is an easy team to trust.
There is a classical inside/out for this one, a favorite that just lost outright vs. an underdog that just won a game outright, those last two outcomes falling 40 points off of the market projections (old friend Marc L. would call it a "DBO 40"), which will bring reversals of pendulums on their own. But when it is a favorite with the pride that San Antonio brings, that makes it even better. My interest will not be in the full game, since Popovich does not have a compelling reason to get the final margin into double figures, but I do expect the Spurs to throw hard punches in the early stages.
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