First, I will say that I believe in Dave Rose. He has produced great teams in the past. He has the ability to produce great teams in the future. Second, I will say that this team has plenty of talent. Maybe not as much as Gonzaga, but certainly as much as St. Mary's and enough talent to get to the Big Dance. Our issue is not talent. Yes, our team is young. But many teams are young. That is a fairly reasonable excuse, but you would expect this team would get better over the course of the season and not lose to high RPI teams midway through the season.

Third, I see one major flaw with the team and one semi-major flaw. If these two flaws are fixed, this will be a very special team.

The first flaw and major flaw is our defense.

I want Coach Rose to do something about our defense. Right now, the biggest problem is the defense. I believe part of the problem is scheme. Part of it is poor technique. And part of it is just poor play on the part of the players. First, regarding the scheme. The 1-3-1 does not work in the way our players apply technique. We are lunging at the ball and not moving our feet. We are helping out our bigs (which is a good thing) but we are leaving shooters unguarded as a result. I think Mika and Childs are fully capable of guarding against most of the bigs in the WCC. It seems that we need to emphasize staying on the shooters (which probably means we need to ditch the 1-3-1 and stick to hard-nosed man-on-man defense). What I noticed against San Diego was Carter's ability to break down our defense, get our guards to collapse and then dish out to open shooters all night long. Whoever was guarding him allowed this to happen way too much, and we had 2-3 guys trying to help...which left 2-3 shooters open. Perhaps some of you can add more details and suggestions.

Second flaw is our half court offense.

When BYU can run, BYU is dangerous. But most WCC teams have figured out how to slow us down. When we run a half court set, it usually consists of moving the ball around the perimeter and playing inside out basketball. Mika has the tendency to get trapped with a double team and then puts up a shot over the double team. It would be nice for him to kick the ball back out immediately when the double team comes and not hesitate. It would also be nice to see more picks and more off ball movement by our players to beat the defenders. When we have the ball around the perimeter, we tend to either jack up long threes, or our guards are driving to the basket in a lot of traffic which can end up in a turnover or bad shot. We need better spacing which can be achieved by better half court sets (picks, off ball movement, more passes and less dribbling, etc.)

Our players are studs. They are used to winning at every level. Sometimes that can breed overconfidence. I hope this team can focus on fundamentals and work on a better defensive scheme and half court offense. We have the talent to do it.

In regard to coaching, I am a believer in Coach Rose. He is the big picture guy. He is a great recruiter and a great representative for BYU. But I am concerned about his assistants. Seems like we were the best when we had Dave Rice. Maybe we should bring him back and also get someone who really knows how to coach defense at the collegiate level.

A final word about the fans....first, we should swarm many of these WCC gyms. There is no reason why most of the road games could not seem like home games to our team. I was dismayed to see so many empty seats in the Jenny Craig Pavilion. They should have been filled by BYU fans. One of our greatest assets is our fanbase. We can and should make a difference. Second, we should take a deep breath during and after games. Check our emotions. I am a passionate BYU fan. I hate seeing us lose. And therefore I post some stupid things at the heat of the moment. I need to take a posting pause for at least 3 hours during and after the game....which is something I intend to do in the future. I hope this came across as a reasonable and thoughtful post.