HB Arnett’s
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Vol. 35, Issue 19 – December 1, 2014
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Stewart Deserves Miami Curtain Call
Cougars Close Regular Season at Cal with 42-35 Win and 8-4 Record
Christian Stewart was an understudy for Taysom Hill, but against Cal last Saturday in Berkeley, he also underscored some of his own quarterback talents by tossing and trashing the Bears’ secondary for 5 touchdowns and 433 yards.
The Bears’ pass defense wasn’t exactly an on Broadway production this season. Cal finished their regular season ranked dead last out of 125 teams in passing yards allowed. They ended their year giving up an average of 367.2 yards through the air per game.
BYU finished their regular season ranked 108 in passing yards surrendered per contest. The Cougars coughed up 266.7 aerial yards per outing.
Porous passing defenses were prevalent in the Pac 12 this season. Washington finished at No. 121 nationally with 283.9 yards allowed per contest. Arizona allowed 275.2 yards per game and finished ranked 116th. Even vaunted Oregon ranked 111th nationally in yardage allowed through the air giving up 271.8 yards a game. They were just barely bettered by USC and ASU. The Trojans surrendered 265.7 yards a game and were ranked 107th in yardage given up per game in the air. ASU finished ranked 105 and gave up 261.8 yards a contest.
Good Equation
A bad secondary (Cal’s) and a good quarterback (BYU’s Stewart) was just the equation Bronco Mendenhall was looking for to continue the Cougars’ current 4-game winning streak.
By any equation or evaluation, it is now readily apparent that Stewart is a very good college thrower. He found his rhythm a few games ago and reached his crescendo against Cal.
While BYU opted to go fast and go hard with Hill before his injury, with Stewart they opted to just go deep. Stewart hit Mitch Juergens for a score from 47 yards out in the first quarter. He also had long distance scoring hits to Jordan Leslie from 37 and 83 yards out.
Too bad Stewart is done for his Cougar career. It would have been good for the newsletter business to speculate and ponder whether Hill, with all his natural athletic talent, or Stewart with his passing abilities, would have been better suited to lead the Cougars in 2015 against a brutal road schedule against Nebraska, Michigan, UCLA and Missouri.
In my opinion, go fast go had was a nice gimmick that was very good with Hill, but go deep and often passing the ball is what put BYU on the map and would have given BYU their best chance at putting up points against the strong road schedule set up for next year.
Legitimate Heisman Contender
In defense of Hill and the read option offense, if ever there was a legitimate Heisman candidate, it was him. The trophy is supposed to go to the nation’s best football player. Hill was good enough, when healthy, to disguise by himself the weaknesses and blemishes of BYU during the 4 games he played.
He was a one man show that put BYU on his back and carried them. That screams most valuable to me.
The Cougars will now rest for a week before getting ready for the Miami Beach Bowl. The opponent won’t be announced until later this week but will most likely be either Cincinnati, Memphis or East Carolina.
The game is set for Monday, December 22 and will kick off at noon Mountain Standard Time. Television details such as by whom the game will be broadcast should also be announced later this week.
Cleveland Conundrum
Last Week Showed BYU Can Shoot the Three, But Can They Play any “D”?
A couple of issues ago, I reference Steve Cleveland’s slogan for his first season as BYU’s head coach. His posters and posture to lure BYU basketball fans back to the Marriott Center after a disastrous 1-25 season, was epitomized in the catch phrase “Shoot the three and play some D.
His first team could do neither.
This year Dave Rose has proven that his team can shoot the three, but playing some “D”, especially man defense, is still extremely questionable.
Four letter words are discouraged from being used at BYU, but when it comes to basketball, here is a four letter word that would be totally acceptable: Z-O-N-E.
The early observation is that the Cougars are not going to beat anybody significant with their man defense, regardless of how hard they try.
The sooner they get into a zone and stay there, the more successful they will be. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
BYU has its problems with a zone. They historically have a hard time getting out to the weak side shooter beyond the arc once the ball is reversed or passed cross court.
That said, even if a team gets hot from outside, they will have to be red hot to beat the Cougars at their own game…shooting the ball from distance.
Twenty years ago, Nolan Richardson, the former Arkansas coach, won a national championship with a full court man defense he called “Forty minutes of Hell”.
The closest BYU will ever get to that system of defense with the caliber of athletes they recruit is “Forty minutes of Oh my Heck”.
My opinion is that Dave Rose should call Steve Cleveland, who is currently serving as President of the Indianapolis, Indiana LDS Mission. I willing to bet that even with his time consuming duties he probably has caught at least one BYU basketball game this season. I’m also willing to bet that he would give Rose this sage mission president advice. “Continue to shoot the three, but for heaven’s sake, get into a zone conference defense as soon as you can.’
Remembering Riverside
Low Post Scorer: The Hardest to Find and Recruit
I think it was 17 years ago.
Dave Rose and Steve Cleveland were brand new basketball coaches at BYU. They were recently removed from the juco ranks and charged with turning around the BYU basketball program.
After a round of golf, Cleveland, Rose, a big BYU booster and I were standing around a golf cart in the parking lot of Riverside Country Club. I still don’t know why I was there, but I was.
Cleveland and the booster buddy were chatting golf, weather and BYU basketball. I was having idle chit chat with Rose.
I don’t know how it came up, but somehow I mentioned that my cousin in Arizona had a 6-8 son that was a decent high school player. Rose perked up and told me that he had been in the home and BYU had taken a look at the kid. He told me that this prospect was the best LDS low post scoring prospect in the LDS class that year.
Despite that, he said he probably wasn’t good enough for BYU to offer him a scholarship. The kid went on to sign with UC Irvine, had a decent run for the Anteaters with a mission sandwiched in between. He married a great girl from Orange County and has since moved to Utah.
Salient Sentence
Enough family history. Here is the salient sentence from that early conversation I had with Rose years ago when he said, “The hardest thing to find and sign in college basketball is a low post scorer.”
I have never forgot what he said, especially in context of BYU basketball and low post scoring threats in the past, present and future.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane when it comes to post players for the Cougars. Frank Arnold had Greg Kite. He was a big body and defensive presence and rebounder who parlayed those skills into an NBA journeyman career. What he wasn’t was a low post scorer.
Ladell Anderson had Mike Smith. He was a scoring machine, but didn’t score very much in the low post.
Roger Reid had Shawn Bradley for one year. He was a shot blocker, but definitely not a low post scorer despite his great size. Reid’s fabulous schemes and baseline entry passes into Gary Trost allowed the marginally athletic Trost to score inside, but he was not a natural low post scorer. And quite frankly, even if Reid had landed Chris Burgess, he too was not a low post scorer.
Steve Cleveland had Raphael Araujo. He was a redo of Greg Kite with a better short range jumper. He could rebound and was big, but definitely not a low post scoring threat. He got his NBA first round money, busted on the big stage and moved back to Brazil.
Trent Plaisted was a great athlete that could play in the open court, but couldn’t score in the low post.
Cleveland’s had a decent low post scorer and outside shooting scorer early with Mekeli Wesley. Cleveland also missed on another LDS low post guy because of a scholarship crunch with Mekeli’s little brother (6-6) Tai, who opted to not walk on at BYU and signed with Utah State, where despite his lack of size, was a prolific college low post scorer.
Little but Lethal
Speaking of little, BYU’s best low post scorer in the last 15 years was 6-6 Keena Young. He was good enough scoring in the low blocks that he was MVP of the MWC and led the Cougars to a MWC title. Here is the best video of Young that I could find. Keena Young versus Wyoming.
In the Rose years, other than Young, we have seen plenty of guys that are big, could rebound and play hard, but we have yet to see a consistent low post scorer that defenses have to account for. The closest thing to it was Brandon Davies, who now cashes an NBA check for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Which brings us to the present. As athletic as Eric Mika was last year and as promising as he looks for the future when he returns from an LDS mission to Italy, he showed little sign of being a low post scoring machine. He is perfect for Rose’s open court offense and for running the floor, but I wouldn’t call him a consistent low post scorer.
Nate Austin is definitely not a low post threat offensively. Isaac Neilson, has promise, but not as a back to the basket low post threat. Corbin Kaufusi has shown great athleticism, but as yet, no promise of a low post offensive game. Luke Worthington, so far, shows no inside scoring presence either.
Quite frankly, Peyton Dastrup, who signed with BYU after reneging on his early commitment to Ohio State, in my opinion, did not show any low post awesomeness in high school either. He had a nice mid-range jumper and could run the court, but even with dominant size in high school, he was not a dominant low post offensive player.
To reiterate what Dave Rose said almost two decades ago, “The hardest thing to find and sign in college basketball is a low post scorer.”
Even harder, is finding an LDS low post scorer. BYU found one last year in Jabari Parker, but so did Duke. Parker was good enough in the low post that he played one year for the Blue Devils and now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Good News
Now for some good news…I think. Keena Young isn’t coming back to play for BYU. But Jamal Aytes, if healthy, and Kyle Davis, the transfer from Utah State, both are.
Both are low post scoring threats. They are not big size wise at 6-6 for Aytes and 6-8 for Davis, but they both can put the ball consistently in the basket when they catch it in the low block.
Now for some bad news. As good as Purdue’s dual big men were against BYU last Wednesday in Maui, Gonzaga’s big men are better and there are more of them. If you are keeping score, the Zags have three legitimate low post threats to BYU’s zero.
If I had to rate BYU’s best low block scorer at this early stage of the season, I would nominate Kyle Collinsworth for the title.
Tyler Haws is a prolific scorer with his mid-range and long range game. That was pretty evident by his 32 points put up on Purdue. But it is Collinsworth, when he gets to the low block that has proven that he can score inside.
Speaking of Collinsworth…and Nick Emery, Emery may be BYU’s starting point guard next season instead of Collinsworth.
Refreshing Memory
To refresh your memory, here is what the current 6-6 BYU point guard said in late July in an interview with a local writer when asked about a future NBA career. “Well, I am a little bit older, because of the mission. I plan on having a big year, and if I do, if the opportunities come, I will take them. So, I am not committed to four years. I am not going to say I am going to leave early, but if the opportunity comes, I will take it. If there are people predicting me to be a first-round draft pick, then I will go,”
The immediate defensive response from BYU fans is that there is no way Collinsworth will be an NBA player because he can’t shoot. That may very well be true, but empirically speaking his shooting in the early going of this season, in the only area that counts for him, is definitely on an uptick.
Collinsworth is not an outside shooter. He is a guy that gets to the basket and converts or is fouled. That will be true in the NBA, also, if he gets there. He has to be a better free throw shooter to make any money at this game.
Last year, Collinsworth shot a dismal .576 from the charity stripe. This season, with an admittedly small sample size, he is shooting .714 from the line and trending upward.
It appears to me that his confidence level in his free throws is also on an upward trend. Here are his free throw numbers for the last four games in the Maui tournament and against Eastern Kentucky. SDSU: 6-8, .750; Chaminade: 6-7, .857; Purdue: 3-4, .750; Eastern Kentucky: 4-5, .800, which works out to be .791 shooting from the line.
If he can consistently shoot foul shots this year at the .750 level or higher, I think he will make himself available to the NBA or Europe and start cashing checks. Of course the big elephant in the room is still the knee. Not only does his free throw shooting percentage need to hold up, so does the knee.
Women’s Volleyball Gets NCAA Invite
Here is the official BYU release of the Lady Cougars’ invite:
PROVO, Utah – The BYU women’s volleyball team will participate in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, heading to Arizona to face off against Seton Hall Thursday.
"This is about what I expected," BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead said. "Once I saw a few things shake out I assumed that we would be heading to UCLA or Arizona. We're excited about it. The girls are excited and ready to go."
The Cougars (25-4, 16-2 West Coast Conference) will play against the Pirates in the first round and the winner will compete against the winner of the match between No. 11 seed Arizona and Yale. BYU and Seton Hall will play Thursday at 5 p.m. MST with Arizona and Yale playing Thursday at 7 p.m. MST. The winners will play Friday at 6 p.m. MST in the second round.
BYU, Seton Hall, Arizona and Yale are part of the Seattle Region. Saturday's winner will advance to the regional semifinals on Dec. 12 at Washington.
TV Timetable
BYU vs. Utah State
Tuesday, December 2 at Logan
Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST
TV: CBS Sports Network
BYU vs. UNLV (W BBall)
Thursday, December 4 at Provo
Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST
TV: BYUtv
BYU vs. CSU (W BBall)
Saturday, December 6 at Salt Lake
Tipoff: Noon MST
TV: BYUtv
BYU vs. Hawaii
Saturday, December 6 at Salt Lake
Tipoff: 4:00 pm MST
TV: BYUtv
BYU vs. Weber State (W BBall)
Tuesday, December 9 at Provo
Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST
TV: BYUtv
BYU vs. Utah
Wednesday, December 10 at Provo
Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST
TV: ESPNU
BYU vs. Weber State
Saturday, December 13 at Ogden
Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST
TV: KJZZ (local Utah Station)
BYU vs. Stanford
Saturday, December 20 at Provo
Tipoff: 9:00 pm MST
TV: ESPNU
BYU vs. TBA AAC Opponent
Monday, December 22 at Miami
Kickoff: Noon MST
TV: No network has been determined at this time
BYU vs. UMass
Tuesday, December 23 at Provo
Tipoff: Noon MST
TV: BYUtv
BYU vs. Gonzaga
Saturday, December 27 at Provo
Tipoff: 4:00 pm MST
TV: ESPN2
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