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BYU Basketball: Cougars completely embarrassed at Mississippi State

By Shaun Gordon

RENO, NV - NOVEMBER 06: Head coach Dave Rose of the Brigham Young Cougars watches a playing during the game between the Nevada Wolf Pack and the Brigham Young Cougars at Lawlor Events Center on November 6, 2018 in Reno, Nevada. (Photo by Jonathan Devich/Getty Images)
RENO, NV - NOVEMBER 06: Head coach Dave Rose of the Brigham Young Cougars watches a playing during the game between the Nevada Wolf Pack and the Brigham Young Cougars at Lawlor Events Center on November 6, 2018 in Reno, Nevada. (Photo by Jonathan Devich/Getty Images) /
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BYU Basketball was a no-show against Mississippi State on Saturday, playing poorly on both sides of the ball in a blowout loss to the Bulldogs.

BYU Basketball is lost right now, and quite frankly they never showed up in Starkville, MS.

No. 19 Mississippi State completely dominated BYU 103-81. Quite frankly, there was no fight in the Cougars.

As usual, the Cougar defense was completely nonexistent, and the offense wasn’t much better.

With the loss, BYU finishes their non-conference slate with an 8-7 record and exactly zero good wins. They’ll start West Coast Conference play on Thursday at Pacific.

Early Run

With the game tied 23-23, Mississippi State rattled off 13 straight points to blow the game wide open.

It’s been a pattern that’s doomed BYU recently. San Diego State went on an early 23-4 run last week. It was a 23-8 run from UNLV the week before.

Unlike the last two weeks, though, the Cougars didn’t come back in the second half. Instead they disappeared on both ends of the court.

Danger Zone

The Cougars came out playing a zone almost exclusively, and it didn’t work much better than their man defense. While the Bulldogs only shot 3-13 from distance in the first half, but shot 50% from the field (19-38).

It was even worse in the second half. Mississippi State hit 19 of their 32 second-half shots (59.4%) and caught fire from distance, hitting four of their eight shots from deep.

Turnover Woes

The Cougars entered the game averaging 11 turnovers per game, but had that beat by one at halftime against the Bulldogs.

BYU was only slight better after halftime with seven giveaways.

Disappearing Role Players

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In the first half, BYU players not named Childs, Haws, and Hardnett combined for a grand total of nine points and five turnovers.

The numbers were better in the second half, as the role players scored 26 points, but most of those came in the final four minutes when the entire bench was in because of the blowout.

Still No Threes

Another game, another horrific shooting night from distance. The Cougars finished just 5-20 from beyond the arc, and most of their looks were good.

Board Dominant

The Bulldogs absolutely destroyed the Cougars on the boards. They out-rebounded BYU 40-31, leading to way too many easy second-chance buckets.

Good From the Line

Maybe the only bright spot for the Cougars was their free throw shooting. They hit 24 of their 29 charity shots, good for 85.7%.

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