BYU Basketball: Three things to watch in the Westminster exhibition
By Shaun Gordon
It’s the final exhibition game of the year for BYU Basketball, and there are plenty of questions that still need to be answered before the regular season tips off.
BYU Basketball plays their final exhibition game on Thursday night, hosting in-state school Westminster College.
The Griffins are now a full-fledged Division II team, and they have a solid track record of strong play in the lower divisions of college basketball.
On the flip side, they’re a Division II team for a reason, and they’ll be severely outmatched in both size and overall skill by the Cougars.
As with most exhibition games, this will be a final chance for the players to earn a spot in the rotation and a final chance for the coaches to find the right balance in that rotation.
Let’s take a look at three major things to watch for in Thursday’s game:
1 – Keep the Foot on the Gas
Last year these two teams squared off in an exhibition, and Westminster kept things tight in a 76-62 BYU win.
But the Griffins have a rebuilt roster this year and lost their top seven scorers, so don’t expect to see this game stay nearly as tight.
The Cougars have to prove that they can play an entire 40-minute game, especially against an inferior foe. They didn’t put a whole game together last week against Saint Martin’s, allowing the Saints to catch fire in the second half and play even basketball for the last 20 minutes.
For a team that’s been known to drop games against teams they have no business losing to, that’s an ominous sign.
BYU’s biggest focus this year is a return to the NCAA Tournament, and they can’t drop games they should win. A dominating wire-to-wire performance on Thursday night should give Cougar Nation hope that BYU has the ability to avoid those bad losses this year.