In college basketball defense starts with guards. This has been a weakness of BYU for a long time. Occasionally we get a defensive player like Jackson Emery but all to often we lack them and are forced into a zone defense.

The most critical thing is staying in front of the point guard. If the offensive player can beat you off the dribble and get into the paint it opens up a myriad of options and put the entire defense in a reactive mode. The guard can then either continue to the rim or pass to open players because other defenders have had to help. The critical part of defending ball handlers is lateral quickness. You either have it or you don't. You cannot teach it.

But there are also defensive fundamentals that BYU teams seem to either lack or or just don't apply. I am talking about rotating, switching on screens and when to go over the top of a screen to stop a shooter.

Sometimes player think they can do things they cannot. Let me use Halford as an example. He would pick up players in a full press at the midcourt or earlier. I suspect at the JC level he was able to do this and get away with it. But all to many times in the last two years I would see him engage early and then have the guard blow by him putting him in catch up mode and other defenders having to help.

Every coach, and Rose is no exception, would prefer to play man-to-man defense. But when you cannot stay in front of guards you end up having to change to a zone defense. Man-to-man requires constant communication between the players and over time a comfortableness with each other. You begin to learn when your teammate will gamble and how you have to be there to help. You learn how to anticipate your teammate's moves and support them.

In the front court the best defensive players are those that learn to keep their feet and not jump at the first fake. Kaufusi improved a great deal in that area towards the end of the season.

I don't have any idea on how much time BYU spends working on defense but statistics show that it should be a lot more. Perhaps Rose needs to bring in a new coach that specializes on defensive schemes. The last one I believe we had was Schroyer,