...when they had Fitzner in at the 4 and had him in the high PNR. We had a 55-49 lead in the 2nd half with a small lineup trying to use Seljaas at the 4 and he and Hardnett both had a hard time covering Naar and Fitzner in the PNR up top and those 2 hit back-to-back-to back jumpers (Fitzner hit a 3 and a long 2 and Naar hit a 2) to take the lead. It opened things up for Landale down low and he went on a run of baskets for the next several minutes.

That got SMC mentally back on track and they controlled things the rest of the way.

Actually with SMC, Bennett is too good of a chess player to think that one specific strategy or lineup is going to beat him. The reason we had a lead at halftime is because Rose kept changing up his lineup trying to keep SMC off balance and it worked. Worthington started out guarding JL in the low post playing him from behind and got abused repeatedly. Rose switched things up and brought Payton Dastrup in and instead of playing behind JL he fronted him down low and this forced JL out higher which threw their offense out of kilter (at least what had been working prior). They went cold and BYU went on a 12-0 tear to go from 17-21 down to up 29-21.

SMC is too good not to continually adjust to what the other team is doing and Bennett trusts his bench and is confident in them doing their roles and will go to them frequently when things aren’t clicking. What really hurt us in the 2nd half is Rose seemed to go the other way and decided to hunker down and ride it out with his favorite guys rather than keep tweaking his lineup looking for an edge.

If Rose hopes to beat Bennett with any regularity he needs to adjust his coaching comfort zone and do more of what he’s started doing of late. Use his bench, help the bench players have defined roles (and know what they are) and don’t be afraid to sit some of his starters down the stretch if they aren’t matching up well with the opposing teams lineup on the floor because Bennett will continue to mix n’ match until he feels he has 5 on the floor that give him the edge. Bennett will coach the full 40 minutes and doesn’t put it on cruise control at the 35 min mark.