BYU basketball: What went wrong for the Cougars in 2016-17
The secret to happiness is to manage expectations. For many BYU basketball fans this season, that may have been a swing and a miss. But even had expectations been more firmly in check, there was still something lacking.
BYU basketball is over for another season. We won’t see it again until November, when football will be waxing full, when summer will be bowing out—and we’ve barely started spring. Looking back at the season that was, someone asked me this:
Where do you think the Cougars went wrong?
That’s a fair question, and a natural one to ask. BYU basketball did not meet the stated goals of the program: winning the conference and playing in the NCAA Tournament.
Heck, the Cougars weren’t even close.
The Cougars settled for a mediocre 3rd place finish in conference. Their nemesis, St. Mary’s, swept them for the season (and the third time, most definitively). The NCAA invited them to the lesser NIT, but they couldn’t even stave off one team on their home court to advance.
As an ending, it was pretty sad. No grand tragedy. Merely out with a whimper.
So how did it happen? What went wrong with BYU’s promising basketball season?
When asked the question, I started to think of a lot of things. Youth and injury—those were undeniable factors. Those led to a lot of the blind leading the blind. All those new line-ups and rotations every month or so took their toll on cohesion and chemistry.
Talent? Most agree the Cougars have it, and showed it in flashes. But in athletics, true talent means consistent performance. Few there were on BYU’s team that could be relied upon to perform consistently.
It’s easy to forget that great high school players don’t always make great college players. The possibility exists that the level of talent wasn’t as high as fans (and coaches) had hoped.
From there we get into the more gray area of armchair coaching.
Defensively as a team, the Cougars only showed the occasional sparkle of quality. The 1-3-1 zone scheme played the role of two-edged sword, getting BYU back in one game and then cutting off their legs the next.
Man-to-man defensive concepts (the ones that head coach Dave Rose has said on more than one occasion that he favors) were short-circuited by the inability of guards to stay in front of their man, and by referees struggling with yet another wave of rule variations filling their heads with nonsense about cylinders instead of what’s simple, what’s good for the game.
Offensively, the Cougars struggled to find identity beyond “get the ball to Eric Mika.” There was no dominant point guard, no field general, to run the show. From the beginning, the Cougars ran offense via point-by-committee, with three or even four PG types in the line up.
And after that (especially riddled by injury) a cataclysmic drop off.
All of these were things that enfeebled the Cougars in facing challenges. But after thinking it over a while, I realized that wasn’t the real reason they fell short of their capabilities. It was really something more fundamental. It was a problem with both the players and the fans.
The real reason: hubris
It happened right at the beginning of the season.
Right when we put a bunch of underclassmen on a pedestal, and told ourselves that the youngest BYU team in decades would shock the world. Lone Peak 3, mythical high school national championships, stars, ESPN rankings. These all wove a spell we cast on ourselves: a false veneer of power and dominance that we thought was going to come right out of the box.
The fans believed it. The team believed it. And it brought out a groundswell of undeserved, unfounded overconfidence. After a crushing loss or two, the Cougars would come down for a bit, and play well. But inevitably, a win or two bought that poisonous overconfidence back, and their gaze would wander.
That’s when they’d fall again.
This is why the Cougars never stood a chance against St. Mary’s. Players and fans couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe that this average-looking, slow-paced, average-talented team could truly match up the recruiting class touched by heaven. Man for man, talent for talent, the chips were in BYU’s favor.
But the Gaels crushed them. Every time.
The road back to finding BYU basketball’s identity
The Cougars have forgotten something important.
BYU basketball wasn’t founded on stars or rankings. Its legacy is not in NBA standouts or top-100 recruits. That legacy was built on guys who played the right way. Built on guys who were underestimated and overlooked, and made those who looked down on them pay.
In Japan, there is a common saying: “Yudan taiteki.”
Roughly translated, it reads: “False security is the greatest foe.”
What was once the BYU Cougars’ greatest tool is now their greatest weakness. However slightly, however subconsciously, the fans and team have been looking down on the WCC. Rolling their eyes at their little gyms and their tattered names, long-faded from the national spotlight.
There was only one team with enough glitz and glamour for BYU, that they dared to treat like a dangerous foe, and guess what?
They beat top-ranked Gonzaga. On their own floor.
Both the team and the fan base need the same medicine. A fundamental attitude change that will make all the difference.
Respect for the opponent. Acknowledgement that talent is ephemeral but hard work is undeniable. Humility in both victory and defeat.
Because make no mistake, despite the youth and injury, the team was far from terrible. It was only in the lens of false expectation that they even approach bad. And they have the parts to be great: a proven coach, all the resources they could ask for, and yes, talent.
Next: Fan event in St. George huge success for Cougars
They just need to go back to what made them great in the first place, before they had any of that. That way, BYU basketball and its fans will stop expecting to win every game, and start deserving to.