Rebels' monster first half dooms Cougars

by sroufe on Feb 6, 2010 3:22 PM PST Comment 3 comments

UNLV came into today's game shooting 31.3% from three on the year. Lon Kruger's best player this season, Tre'von Willis, was averaging 27.2% from deep before Saturday.

UNLV came into the second half shooting 91.3% from three on the year. Lon Kruger's best player this season, Tre'von Willis, raised his three-point shooting percentage to 97.2% on the season during the first half.

At least that's how it seemed. Too little, too late for BYU. Playing the Rebels again come MWC Tournament time just got even more interesting. Now then...

Of the remaining seven games on the pre-tourney schedule, three are in Provo. It doesn't matter who the Cougars are playing (AFA, SDSU, UNM) - if BYU can beat UNLV at the Marriott Center they can win all three of those games. That's 25 wins overall. Furthermore, each of the remaining road games (CSU, Wyoming, Utah and TCU) are very winnable contests, with the Utes likely the most legitimate threat. That's at least 27 wins before the MWC tourney where they should pick up at least one more win.

28 wins is realistic and would probably allow the Cougars to be seeded between 3 and 5 come mid-March. Only a select few teams will have 28 wins when "Selection Sunday" arrives (and to be less than a 5-seed there would obviously have to be at least 20 teams with 28 wins or higher RPI's or both). By "select few" I mean less than the 20 it would take to push the Cougars to be a 6-seed or lower.

In short, this ship ain't sunk.

Next: Air Force - Saturday, February 13th

Network Recap

Final - 2.6.2010	1	2	Total
BYU Cougars	34	40	74
UNLV Runnin Rebels	56	32	88

Complete Coverage >

0 recs | Comment 3 comments | Add comment

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

2 thoughts

1. This is scary once again come tourney time. rebels looked solid. can we ever get a neutral site?! If BYU loses once again at Thomas and Mack, we will be snubbed with another 7-8 seed.
2. The threes were raining in Vegas today but I think the understated weakness is rebounding. Chris Miles has been the liability in all of BYU’s big games. Today, 0 points and 2 rebounds. I don’t usually feel this way about college athletes, but he should be ashamed of his play. Is there any other option that to give Abouo and Tavernari his minutes?

by Howi on Feb 6, 2010 3:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

What is the deal with Emery

Anyone know if he is married? My buddy and I think this completely has something to do with an off the court issue and vanquishthefoe needs to do some investigating! Is she holding out on him as in Bull Durham? If he isn’t married is he going through a breakup or is she cheating on him? There are a lot of possibilities but these seem most likely
The kid needs to break this cold streak somehow because its getting ridiculous. He looks tense, frustrated, he is starting fights with freshman. To go from one of the tops 3 point shooters in the nation to TERRIBLE, there has to be something here that VTF needs to find and solve

by Howi on Feb 6, 2010 3:49 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

This week off should do wonders for us

I don’t think we’ve ever really “recovered” from the loss at UNM. This week off should give the guys a chance to work on their weaknesses, watch some game film, and really game plan for down the stretch. AFA is going to receive the brunt of a fresh BYU team that is going to make a run to the MWC title and a 3 seed in the big dance.

by vaughnzipper on Feb 7, 2010 6:56 AM PST reply actions 0 recs