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PROVO — With BYU’s heartbreaking loss to the Ole Miss Rebels a couple weeks ago, the Cougars basketball season is officially over. The game was fitting in many ways and followed general patterns that had been exhibited by the team all season. Here are five ways the loss mirrored the Cougars’ season.
Lack of defense
As had been the case for most of the year, the Cougars showed a general disinterest on the defensive side of the ball. For most college basketball teams, scoring 90 points would be more than enough to win a game, but BYU’s defense in the second half was absolutely pitiful. The Rebels got easy basket after easy basket as Cougar guards could not slow down dribble penetration and the big men left their men wide open for easy dunks.
Losing a close game
A few bounces this way or that way and the Cougars were a 30-win team this year. However, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes. BYU struggled to close out games all season, and the game against Ole Miss was yet another heartbreak. On the season, the Cougars lost only one game, the WCC tournament championship game against Gonzaga, by double digits. The other nine losses they lost by an average of just under five points a game.
Tyler Haws torched the nets
While the Cougars could not pull off a victory, it is hard to blame Haws. He scored 33 points and always had to be accounted for by Ole Miss. Haws finished a terrific season and a remarkable career with a bang. He will be sorely missed as the Cougars will need to find a new alpha scorer in the upcoming seasons.
Lack of size
For much of the season, coach Dave Rose stuck with a four-guard lineup to take advantage of his depth at the position and to try to hide the team’s lack of quality big men. While the move was out of necessity, it still had its inherent problems. One of those problems was exposed in this game as Cougar players struggled to keep the Rebels off the offensive boards. BYU’s lack of quality big men who can rebound led to the Rebels grabbing 16 offensive rebounds. This explains, at least in part, why Ole Miss shot 32 more field goals than BYU.
Too much reliance on three-pointers
When three pointers were falling for BYU this season, they were tough to beat. In the first half, BYU was on fire as the team knocked down 10 of 15 three-pointers. Such a pace would be almost impossible to duplicate, and the Cougars shot considerably poorer in the second half as they made only 5 of 14 three-pointers after halftime. It is not by coincidence that the Cougars’ fates drastically changed with the inability to hit threes in the second half as this pattern had been seen throughout the year.
All in all, BYU had a pretty strong year overall as the team again made the NCAA tournament. However, as mentioned, the season could have been special had the Cougars been able to close out games better. And it’s hard to swallow that BYU had two all-time greats in Haws and Collinsworth, but were unable to put together a better season. However, as John Greenleaf Whittier famously wrote, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’”
Dylan Cannon is a regular KSL.com contributor and can be reached at DylanCannon86@gmail.com or via twitter @DylanCannon11. Listen to his weekly podcast, "Cougar Talk," on iTunes.
