HB Arnett’s
COUGAR SPORTSLINE
801
372 0819
hbarnett@fiber.net and hbarnett@xmission.com
Vol. 29,
Issue 40 – July 1, 2009
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SENIOR
SLOSHINGS
This issue wraps
up the current publishing year. That means the weekly issues will begin again
in early August. If you are counting, next month will mark the start of the
30th year of business for Cougar Sportsline.
You may not be
counting, but I certainly am. I remember how old I was when I started this rag.
Add thirty years and in August I should qualify as an official crotchety old
man.
Of course some
subscribers have already told me that I have been in full-blown crotchety mode
for some time now. Doing the same thing for three decades will make anybody
cranky and is a good excuse for the depth of drivel I have penned and produced
over the years. Unfortunately, it still doesn't make me eligible to collect
social security.
If I had a nickel
for every issue I have written, I would have exactly $58 (If you don't want to
do the math, it works out to be 1160 issues.) Shouldn't KSL have paid me money
to sponsor this issue?
So far I have
balked at Botox and face lifts, but I do confess that I now have gut implants.
The added girth is strictly cosmetic and allows me to fit in more comfortably
with my current church peer group.
I can't see any
downside to the implants, but I can hear them. They tend to make sloshing
sounds when I walk.
I initially
thought I might have hit the mother lode of a malpractice suit, but my wife,
children and grandchildren tell me that sloshing isn't the only noise they have
noticed since I entered the senility stage of life.
Here then are my
latest senior sloshings as they relate to BYU football and basketball
Basketball
and Food Storage
When it comes to
food storage, the primary principle is "rotate and replace".
When it comes to
the BYU basketball coaching cupboard, the recent Dave Rose health saga has
illustrated to us that you might be able to rotate some assistant coaches in
Rose's place on an
interim basis, but replacing the fifth-year head coach of the Cougars is
downright impossible.
The good news for
Rose and BYU basketball fans is that "rotate and replace" is now just
a theory and nothing that will have to be implemented.
Despite some
sobering news of a few weeks ago, Rose is now in remission from the pancreatic
cancer that was first detected early in June.
As a review, Rose
experienced some medical problems while on vacation a few weeks back. He ended
up in a hospital in
The initial
reports were that he had pancreatic cancer. Later reports indicated he had a
less aggressive and less common form of pancreatic cancer called pancreatic
neuroendocrine tumor cancer.
Rose's doctors now
say that the tumor was removed successfully at the hospital in
He still needs
some recuperative time and will be closely monitored in the future.
As of now, Rose
intends to continue coaching BYU and says he will be on the court and sideline
this fall..
Initial
Reports
Compared to the
initial reports, the prognosis for Rose, his family and BYU basketball is much
improved.
Now that the
initial shock has gone and the news is much more upbeat, it might not hurt to
see just how lucky Rose, BYU athletic administrators, BYU fans and the BYU
basketball program has been.
Nobody wanted to
speculate on the future of Dave Rose and BYU basketball in public, but it was
certainly being done privately, until the recent positive news.
Here is what we
think we all learned.
Dave Rose is
currently irreplaceable.
If BYU was forced
to select a replacement for Rose, the pickings are indeed slim.
The first place
BYU would look initially is on the current staff.
There is actually
an assistant coach on the basketball staff that, in our opinion, would do just
fine. That would be Dave Rice. He can recruit, coach and has a nice public
presence.
He has it all,
except membership in the
BYU will not hire
a head coach in basketball or football that doesn't have a temple recommend.
The visibility for
the Church in those two positions is as high, if not higher, than the average
General Authority profile.
It may not be
right, but it is real and BYU and the Church know it.
The rest of the
staff currently consists of John Wardenburg, Terry Nashiff and director of
operations Tim LaComb.
Add To Resume
In our opinion, these are
guys that either would have to prove themselves on an interim basis or leave
and add to their resumes with experience and success at other schools before
seriously being considered as a replacement for Rose.
We know that there
are still some BYU basketball fans that think BYU could, if needed, move Jeff
Judkins over from the women's coaching job he has held for a while.
We definitely
aren't in that camp.
Dick
Hunsaker is LDS and at
If that resume
won't fly for Hunsaker as a current head coach, it won't fly for an LDS
assistant like Alex Jensen. He is at
Neither will
retreads.
Cross Steve
Cleveland and Roger Reid off the list.
There are other
current LDS Division I head coaches, but the temple worthy and recommend rule
still applies and they would have to be eliminated from consideration. We
aren't going to elaborate, but it isn't hard to figure out who some of these
coaches are.
The pickings of
current LDS assistant coaches on Division I teams is slim and looks to be even
more slim with the change of coaches at USC.
Gib
He has been an
assistant at USC, Pepperdine, Vanderbilt, Loyola Marymount and
Walter Roese is
LDS and currently coaching at
Gamble
BYU took a
huge gamble when they hired from the juco ranks with Steve Cleveland. That hire
illustrated just how small the qualified applicant pool has always been.
He was able to
make BYU competitive again in recruiting the best LDS high school basketball
prospects.
His biggest coup
turned out to be his hiring of Dave Rose, another coach with a juco resume.
In eight years
under
Speaking of
If and when the
time ever comes to replace Rose because of health or him being hired away, the
Big Kahuna is still Danny Ainge. He has coached in the NBA and is the current
GM of the Boston Celtics.
He is also 51 and
had recent heart problems. The only way we see him ever coaching basketball at
BYU is if he got an Eddie Sutton/Bob Knight deal.
Father-Son
Deal
Sutton, you may
remember, was the head coach at
Knight, at Texas
Tech, was followed by his son Pat who is still currently coaching in
This is just pure
speculation, but the only way we see Ainge interested in a future vacancy at
BYU would be if he could bring his son Austin as an assistant and let him
simmer for a few years with the goal of the younger Ainge eventually succeeding
his dad.
That is the only
scenario we can see where Ainge would ever coach basketball at BYU if and when
the day would come that Rose was no longer coaching in
We are sure that
we will now have many names of LDS basketball coaches brought to our attention,
but the bottom line is that if Dave Rose ever does have to be replaced because
of future health concerns or his leaving for a big-money and big-name job, the
replacement pickings are slim.
BASKETBALL
BRIEFS
While we stand by
our assessment of Dave Rose as a good coach and a good fit for BYU, his best
asset is that he is a very good recruiter.
Just like college
football, in college basketball, good coaching is nice, but having good players
is better.
The recently
completed NBA draft illustrates our point. So does BYU's basketball history.
In case you missed
the recent draft,
BYU had a former
MWC player-of-the-year and all league pick in Lee Cummard, but his name was never
called in the draft. He will play on the Phoenix Suns’ summer league team
of rookies and free agents beginning later this month in
This year's MWC
Player of the Year, Luke Nevill of
We like Mountain
West basketball. It is entertaining, but it is several rungs below the top
basketball conferences in the nation like the ACC, Big East, SEC, and Pac 10,
despite what provincial pundits, MWC honks and coaches think.
For the record, in
the most recent NBA draft, there were 60 picks in two rounds. Here is the
scorecard of draftees by conference: Big East - 10; Pac 10 - 9; ACC - 7; SEC -
4; C-USA - 4; Big 12 -3; Big 10 - 2; West Coast Conference - 2; Atlantic 10 -
1;
The remaining 15
of the 60 picks were international players.
We don't see a
first-round NBA pick from BYU anytime soon, but it might surprise some to know
that the Cougars have had 5 first-round picks and Danny Ainge wasn't one of
them. He was an early second round pick by
BYU's first round
picks were Craig Raymond in 1967; Greg Kite in 1983; Michael Smith in 1989;
Shawn Bradley in 1993 and Rafael Araujo in 2004.
In the ten-year
history of the Mountain West Conference, the league has had six first-round
selections: Rafael Araujo - BYU; Jason Smith - CSU; Danny Granger and J.R.
Giddens -
REST,
RECUPERATION AND RECRUITING
The next couple of
months for Dave Rose will consist of plenty of rest, recuperation and some
localized recruiting.
The LDS basketball
prospect scene fits nicely into Rose's recovery plans for the summer.
Instead of sitting
in gyms across the country during the month of July, he will send his
assistants to evaluate and analyze future LDS prospects.
The Cougars have already
identified and targeted their top recruiting priority that they hope to sign in
November.
The good news for
Rose is that it won't require any plane rides to make the Cougars' in-home
pitch later this year.
Kyle Collinsworth
is just across the street from BYU at Provo HS. His home is just a few miles
further south in Mapleton.
Collinsworth, who
is the younger brother of current Cougar Chris Collinsworth, is ranked as one
of the top 100 prospects in he nation. If you are a long-time subscriber you
know we have been talking about him since he was still in junior high school.
He currently says
that he will be making official recruiting visits to five schools; BYU,
PREP FOOTBALL RECRUITING HOTBEDS:
While the SEC,
ACC, Pac 10 and Big Twelve, along with other major conferences, get boatloads
of football recruits from the Sunshine, Lone Star and
Here is what we
mean.
The current roster
of BYU is loaded with
Some are on the
fall roster, others are on LDS missions and will return to the roster. Some
signed last year and will join the roster next month and still more
Here are the
current scholarships players from
Luke Ashworth, WR,
Timpview HS,
Rhen Brown, WR, Lone Peak
HS,
Stephen Covey, WR,
Timpview HS,
Scott Johnson, DB,
Timpview HS,
Mike Muehlmann, TE,
American Fork HS, UT
Matt Reynolds, OL,
Timpview HS,
Harvey Unga, RB, Timpview
HS,
Famika Anae, OL, Timpview
HS,
Eathyn Manamaleuna, DL,
Timpview HS,
Jordan Smith, WR, Spanish
Fork HS, UT
Craig Bills, DB, Timpview
HS,
Tui Crichton, OL,
Timpview HS,
Anthony Heimuli, RB,
Richard Wilson, TE/LB,
Spanish Fork HS, UT
Michael Alisa, LB,
Timpview HS,
Kevan Bills, LB, Timpview
HS,
Cameron Comer, DB,
Springville HS, UT
Jake Murphy, WR/LB,
American Fork HS, UT
Matt Ah You, LB, Lone
Peak HS,
Here are
Sae Tautu, LB, Lone Peak
HS,
Bryan Sampson, TE, Pleasant
Grove HS, UT, BYU commit
Joey Owens, LB, Pleasant
Grove HS, UT, BYU commit
Bronson Kaufusi, DL,
Timpview HS,
Sefa Tanoa'i, DL,
Pleasant Grove HS, UT, undecided
Dallas Lloyd, QB,
Pleasant Grove HS, UT, Stanford commit
Chris Badger, DB,
Timpview HS,
BYU has already offered
two other
Austin Heder, LB,
Pleasant Grove HS, UT, BYU commit
Bryson McKenzie, RB,
Timpview HS,
We find just a
touch of irony with the sudden surge of BYU's
recruiting interest in
Now under Bronco
Mendenhall,
Either football
prospects in the county have become much, much better, or they are being
marketed much better by the internet and BYU is buying.
Time will tell how
it shakes out.
Time has already
proven that the number of players from
The number of
Here are the
players from
Lance Reynolds Jr., OL
Timpview HS
Matt Reynolds, OL,
Timpview HS
Harvey Unga, RB, Timpview
HS
Scott Johnson, DB,
Timpview HS
Eathyn Manamaleuna, DL,
Timpview HS
Jonny Harline, TE,
Paul Walkenhorst, LB,
American Fork HS
Chris Hale, WR,
Jason Kukahiko, WR,
Mike Tanner, LB,
Toby Christensen, WR,
American Fork HS
Rod Wilkerson, WR,
Brett Engemann, QB,
Timpview HS
Ifo Pili, DL,
Isaac Kelley, LB,
American Fork HS
Setema Gali, Jr., DL,
Remember,
this isn’t a list of all
You likely
saw all the same games we saw, so you judge for yourself how many of these
Our take is that
of these local high school starters from the last decade, only two have had
significant impact.
Harvey Unga has
proven he is a player, and Jonny Harline cemented his status as an impact
player with just one catch against
While the
recruiting numbers of the last ten years seem a little skewed and top heavy
toward
They must feel
that home grown is the new hotbed of recruiting for BYU football.
COMMITMENTS KEEP COMING
BYU is now up to
18 verbal commitments for the coming football recruiting season. Here is the
updated list.
Zac Stout...LB, 6-2, 220,
Oaks Christian HS, CA
Ross Apo...WR, 6-4, 195,
Jake Heaps...QB, 6-2,
195, Skyline HS, WA
Tuni Kanuch...DL, 6-1,
285, Bingham HS, UT
A.J. Moore...RB, 5-10,
190,
Collin Keoshian, LB, 6-2,
225, Santa
Travis Tuiloma, DL, 6-3,
290, Washburn Rural HS, KS
Graham Rowley, OL, 6-4,
270, Waialua HS, HI
Jordan Black, OL 6-7,
235, Alta HS, UT
Joey Owens, LB, 6-2, 215,
Pleasant Grove HS, UT
Algernon Brown, RB, 6-1,
205, Skyline HS, UT
Bronson Kaufusi, DL, 6-6,
225, Timpview HS, UT
Manu Mulitalo, OL, 6-3,
305, Granger HS, UT
Sae Tautu, LB, 6-3, 215,
Lone Peak HS, UT
Bryan Sampson, TE, 6-4,
210, Pleasant Grove HS, UT
Hauoli Jamora, DL, 6-2,
230, Kahuku HS, HI
Tayo Fabuluje, DL, 6-6,
255,
Teu Kautai, LB, 6-1, 220,
All are LDS with the
exception of Keoshian and Fabuluje.