BYU Basketball Weekend Wrap-Up

This week the BYU faced conference foe UNLV in Provo before finishing the week with a Saturday night game in El-Paso against the Miners of UTEP. Since the 49 point outing of Jimmer Fredette at Arizona the BYU team has to play without his usual pizazz and 2 of the 3 games he never got off the bench. Sidelined with a bout of Strep Throat he was left on the bench as the Cougars handled Eastern New Mexico (or perhaps better known as "Who?"). He is averaging 20.7 pts, 5.3 assists, 3.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and shooting 93% from the free throw line. He is a truly irreplaceable player leading the conference in several statistical categories (including scoring) and leading the pack as the favorite for conference play of the year. Now that his dominance has been established lets see how the Cougars fared without his normal brilliance.

UNLV:
BYU entered the game 68-3 at home under Coach Rose and did not disappoint edging out the Rebels by 4 points. Jimmer got in the game in this one and managed only 7 points in 25 minutes. He also added only 1 assist, 1 rebound, and found the time to commit 3 turnovers. How is it possible that the cougars won this game? Well, much of the theatrics of the victory belonged to Michael Lloyd, Jr who's quickness helped him find his way to the hoop twice in the waning minutes of this game. He also added a three point field goal giving himself 7 points in 16 minutes of play (all seven in the second half when it was needed most). Then there was Jonathan Tavernari who scored 17 points, 14 in the second half and Noah Hartsock who also had 17, 13 in the first half to keep us in it. However, another unsung hero of this game and, as you will see, the game against UTEP was freshman Tyler Haws. On a night where the cougars shot 37% from the field Haws grabbed 4 offensive rebounds, to lead all cougars, and 6 overall. He also 12 points, 2 steals, and 3 assists. While he started the year off slowly he has been improving with each game played in both scoring, shooting, assisting, and rebounding. He is making a strong case for freshman of the year, especially if BYU wins the conference.

UTEP:
I was able to watch much less of this game than I would have liked, so I have little to report on the impact of players outside of the stats. However, in a game where Jimmer Fredette didn't make it off the bench, on the road, against a team that just might make the tournament (may need to win the conference after losses to BYU and TX-Tech) BYU found a way to get it done. Once again, BYU was able to rely on freshman Tyler Haws and former starter Jonathan Tavernari with additional scoring coming from another unlikely place. Against UNLV Hartsock was the hero, but El Paso proved to belong to another big man, Brandon Davies. Davies added 14 points to the 19 by Tavernari and the 20 from Haws to give BYU a 7 point victory. Haws built on the success against UNLV adding 11 rebounds to his 20 points along with a steal and 2 assists. BYU scored over 80 for the 11th time this year and are looking like a team that (with a couple wins in the conference tournament) that could win 30+ games and make a splash in the NCAA tournament, especially if they can get a good draw at a 5 or 4 seed and in the SLC regional.