Open GameThread: Horned Frogs vs. Cougars

Preview after the jump

The last time the BYU Courgars played the TCU Horned Frogs Jimmer Fredette had a paltry 21 points on 6 of 16 shooting with 2 of 5 coming from three point territory. In fact, he wasn't even the top scorer in the game. The man responsible for both of these events is Ronnie Moss, who had 27 points and 6 rebounds on 10-17 shooting including 3-5 from deep.

Against most of our MWC foes The Jimmer has lit them up the first time around; but recently he's been in a Kemba Walker like rut, except not as bad. He's been having trouble hitting some shots and getting to the line. If this trend continues don't expect Fredette to get his due. But he's a competitor, and just like the defense can better prepare for him, he can better prepare for the defense.
As a team, the last TCU game was about as good as we could get, even if Jimmer didn't play well. We had five players in double figures and Noah, Davies, and Kyle Collinsworth all had a crazy nine rebounds! And if Abouo plays like he has been we could easily get another double digit scorer. I am a firm believer in our big men. I think Davies and Hartsock are amazing. And if they can step up, stay out of foul trouble, and grab those rebounds we will contend with anybody.

But I'm forgetting one of our main guys, Jackson Emery. Last time around it was Jackson Emery Night, in honor of him becoming the all time leader in steals at BYU; and all fans with the name of "Jackson" got in free. Our other starting senior guard had 17 points hitting 5 of 7 from long range. He only shot once from inside the arc, and drained it. Jackson also had 2 steals to go along with 2 rebounds and an assist.

Now enough of the recap, this is a new day and a new game. So what's new? Well as always the team is saying we won't look past this game (we have big showdowns against CSU and at SDSU next week). Dave Rose does a good job of keeping the team grounded and looking straight ahead. Kyle Collinsworth is said to be at 100% after suffering a concussion a few games back. Coach Rose says he's leaving the decision for who starts at the 3, Kyle or Abouo, till game time. Personally I have no preferences for who starts. Abouo has been playing well the past few games and I don't see Kyle hitting a freshmen wall anytime soon, if at all. We should all feel lucky we have two players worth starting at that position.

And for TCU; as implied above Ronnie Moss is a pretty amazing player. He's undoubtedly their best player, probably on both ends of the floor. But he's not their only good player, their point guard, Hank Thorns, is pretty good too. He leads the league in assists with 6.5 while averaging 10.3 points, third on their team, and 3.3 rebounds, despite being only 5-9.

Of course I'm expecting a win in this one, TCU is 10-17 after all and has lost 13 out of their past 14 games including 9 straight. But a Horned Frog backed into a corner could be dangerous, so watch out. But I wouldn't get too worked up about losing.

And here's some non-game related news:

BYU home games are now sold out for the rest of the season, finishing with six consecutive sell-outs and eight overall.

TCU and BYU have agreed to an October 28^th meeting in football at Cowboys Stadium. The past two years these teams have played here to open the season; BYU beat Oklahoma in 2009 and TCU beat Oregon State last year. This agreement comes after TCU coach Gary Patterson says he doesn't see his team playing BYU in the future. Oops! BYU will drop their game against Louisiana Tech to open up this game; Texas Tech dropped TCU on their schedule to open up a game for their now extended Big 12 play.

Apparently there was a signing party on campus the other day, and Jimmer wasn't there. He apologized to those there and said he didn't know about it till afterwards through text.

According to the media mock bracket here's had the top two seeds will go: 1. Ohio St, Pitt, Texas, and Kansas; 2. Duke, BYU, SDSU, and Georgetown. Since 1994 his mock bracket has predicted over 83% of teams within one of their actual seed. That means if BYU wins out, and one of the top seeds goes into a slump, we have an outside chance of getting a one seed. Not very likely to happen, but this means we could also drop down to a three seed.

P.S. Sorry for no links, I didn't have time to go searching for them. And I'll keep trying to get game threads up with some previews.

Let's make a goal of 5 different people posting on this thread. If we can get that many I'll up the ante a bit, depending on how many people post. So I challenge everyone who sees this to post, if only a short one. And please vote!