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BYU Basketball: Lessons learned from beating Oral Roberts

By Shaun Gordon

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 04: A basketball flies through the hoop during the round eight NBL match between Melbourne United and the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena on December 4, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 04: A basketball flies through the hoop during the round eight NBL match between Melbourne United and the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena on December 4, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images) /
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While BYU Basketball never could completely blow Oral Roberts away on Thursday night, they did show good signs in the 20-point win.

BYU Basketball took care of business on Thursday night, taking down Oral Roberts 85-65.

It was a game that BYU should have won easily, and they did win it fairly easily, although they never could quite turn the game into a complete blowout.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the win over the Golden Eagles:

Sluggish Start

Once again the Cougars started the game off slowly on  both ends of the court. Oral Roberts hit 40% from deep in the first half, allowing the Golden Eagles to stay with BYU through the first 15 minutes.

The offense has started horribly in every game so far this year. It’s an alarming pattern that has to be reversed.

Shooting Swap

While BYU started sluggishly, their shooting from deep was actually decent in the first half. They hit 5-15 before the break from distance, yet only hit 1-9 in the second half. Usually they’ve shot worse in the first half than the second.

The Cougars entered the game hitting approximately 25% from distance and they hit exactly 25% from distance on Thursday night.

Complete Haws

Even through his shot was off, TJ Haws played one of his most complete games as a Cougar. He finished with eight points, eight rebounds, six assists, and a steal. More importantly he had zero turnovers.

While he only shot 1-7 from the field, he didn’t try to shoot too much, instead becoming a key facilitator.

Limiting Turnovers

After their sloppy turnover-prone game against Northwestern State on Tuesday, BYU did a much better job at taking care of the basketball. They only turned it over eight times, and anytime you’re able to finish in single-digits in turnovers it’s a pretty clean game.

Just as important, the Cougars forced 13 Oral Roberts turnovers and scored 16 points off those freebies.

dark. Next. How much better is 2018 BYU Football than 2017?

Star Shut-Down

Golden Eagles junior Emmanuel Nzekwesi entered the game averaging more than 17 points per contest, and was held to less than half that (eight points) by the Cougars.

Foul trouble played a big factor in that, but credit BYU’s defense as well for limiting the opponent’s best scorer.

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