@ BYU - Saturday 2/4, 6:00pm, BYUTV

Game Time - 6:00 PM, Marriott Center
Video - BYUTV
Radio - Sports 910
Stats - http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=148443

The morale train continues its descent, but the family's cable package has BYUTV so can't really pass on an opportunity to see the Pilots on a TV screen instead of a computer screen considering no ROOT or CSN over here.

(I'm no sports writer here, maybe someone else could provide a better pre-game summary.)

(I'm no sports writer here, maybe someone else could provide a better pre-game summary.)

BYU can score, but doesn't like to play defense. Pilots can't score lately. So it's a movable object vs. a stoppable force.

Tough task to outscore BYU in Provo, they'll have three times as many fans in the house as any other WCC school. Hope the Pilots make a decent show.

Huh. Wonder what Pilot team I'm watching; looks nothing like the last few weeks. Up 34-28 at half.

And the big guys are contributing. That's nice to see.

34-28 Portland. Portland leading at halftime? At BYU? Not a joke, folks.

That being said, being very cautiously optimistic as it was ugly from both sides. BYU had foul trouble from their starting lineup and cold shooting. Portland had ugly turnovers, cold shooting, and a really bad last play at the end of the half where it was 30 seconds, Portland ball, Jazz shoots at 10 seconds, misses, BYU scores to end the half.

On the plus side, hustle plays and second chances seem to be improving.

Ugh, these fouls on Mika are going to kill us. Lot of foul trouble on our end.

BYU with 51 points and ~6 minutes to go. Announcer said they had 49 in the second half alone against Gonzaga. It's not been pretty, but it's working. Pilots lead by 2. A lot of guys in foul trouble, particulary Phil and Andre with 4. A bunch of guys with 3.

Well...Phil's out. Barreno apparently also with 4. Didn't realize that.

Barreno and Hartwich fouled out. Smoyer pls.

Smoyer is our best offensive big IMO. Good rebounder, but not nearly the defender that Phil is yet.

BYU steals a win, literally. The pressure defense bothered the Pilots at the end, especially when Gabe had the ball up high.

Solid game from the guys. They need to build on this effort.

I never understand senseless fouls when the game is out of reach. This was not an 11 point game.

I missed most of this one but caught the last half of the second. I'm used to a two-hour time difference between Saskatchewan and whenever these games start, so the 7:00 Mountain start time threw me a bit.

I feel for these guys, coming up with an effort like this in a tough atmosphere on the road but ultimately falling short. That fifth foul on Hartwich was certainly a chintzy call, and the wheels fell off the bus a little bit after he had to go off.

A lot better effort than recent games, but ball handling still needs work. Noticed a decent amount of losing the ball, throwing it out of bounds, ugly turnovers. Of course the usual scoring droughts, etc.

Also limiting foul trouble in case of crunch time, as we saw in the last minute collapse. Felt like we gave away or set up too many 3-point plays.

Should try to keep the effort momentum at least until after next Thursday. SMC just pulled what they did to us at home at USD today. Except worse, limiting them to 27 points compared to 33. And that was with Wintering. With our current slump, Wintering out, and on the road, I'm just hoping things will at least better than that SMC-USD game, if not the last SMC-UP game.

A smattering of observations on the game:

• Good showing by Taylor, but he did miss several very makable shots around the basket.
• Barreno and Hartwich played good defense on Mika, but they couldn't stop fouling.
• After BYU went to the 1-3-1 zone, UP's offense fell apart and committed several turnovers. Why was Taylor playing in the backcourt at that point? He committed a couple of turnovers and did not provide a ball-handling/driving the basket threat. Why didn't another guard play back there as the outlet for Jazz? Major coaching fail, especially since no adjustment was made for many, many possessions.
• On wide-open fastbreak attempts, Rashad Jackson was 0-1 shooting and committed 2 TOs and an offensive foul. After he dribbled the ball out of bounds late in the second half on his third fastbreak opportunity, the Pilots trailed by 6 points (in other words, it would have been a tie game at that point had he converted on those three fastbreaks).
• We played good enough defense to win both of this week's games. The offense was better against BYU, but ultimately not quite good enough.
• No minutes from either Maker or Marshall in this game. Perhaps one of them could have come in against BYU's zone defense as a high post passing target for Jazz?

Interestingly, coach played 8 players, all with 12 or more minutes.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:• On wide-open fastbreak attempts, Rashad Jackson was 0-1 shooting and committed 2 TOs and an offensive foul. After he dribbled the ball out of bounds late in the second half on his third fastbreak opportunity, the Pilots trailed by 6 points (in other words, it would have been a tie game at that point had he converted on those three fastbreaks).

That's another thing that was kinda painful to watch...just didn't know how to describe it in words.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:
• No minutes from either Maker or Marshall in this game. Perhaps one of them could have come in against BYU's zone defense as a high post passing target for Jazz?

I was wondering that, too. No hate towards Ferguson, I know he's trying to fill some big shoes on short notice, but unfortunately the only thing that stood out to me from him this game was I think two straight turnovers and getting into foul trouble pretty quickly. BYU has pretty tall guys, and the height mismatch + more players forming a wall means more likelihood of throwing the ball away.