BYU Basketball: In a game of runs, the Cougars’ mentality is coming up short

BYU Basketball has struggled to stop scoring runs and create their own this season, and their record shows that. And a lack of focus is the culprit.

Basketball is a game of runs.

One team will get hot for a span of time, outscoring their opponent in (usually) short bursts to either build a lead or cut into a deficit.

Good teams are able to do two things well:

• Minimize the other team’s scoring run
• Counter with a scoring run of their own

And those runs are often the difference in winning and losing a basketball game. Three years ago FanSided’s Seth Partnow analyzed the data from every NBA game in the 2014-15 season, and found some pretty startling statistics. His definition of a run was at least seven straight points without the opponent scoring, and here’s what he found:

• Home teams averaged 2.6 runs per game, while road teams averaged just 1.6
• The team that has more runs in a game will win 82.2% of the time.
• The Golden State Warriors, who had the NBA’s best record by seven games, led the league by a wide margin in runs of at least seven points.

While college basketball is different from the NBA in both level and style of play, it’s not unrealistic to expect those stats to be pretty similar in college.

Losing the Run Battle

So what does this have to do with BYU Basketball?

The Cougars are suffering through their worst season in more than a decade, and they’ve looked pretty bad in a lot of their recent games.

And a lot of that has come as a result of losing that run matchup.

Let’s remove all of the less-talented teams that BYU beat up on at home. We’re just going to look at the games against teams that should be equally or more talented.

That leaves nine games, and the Cougars are 2-7 in those games. Here’s the breakdown of the scoring runs in those games, both by quantity and severity.

• Nevada – 3 runs, BYU – 0 runs (Largest – Nevada 10-0)
• Houston – 3 runs, BYU – 0 runs (Largest – Houston 11-0)
• Illinois St. – 1 run, BYU – 1 run (Largest – Illinois St. 11-2)
• Utah St. – 1 run, BYU – 1 run (Largest – BYU 14-3)
• Utah – 0 runs, BYU – 2 runs (Largest – BYU 13-0)
• UNLV – 1 run, BYU – 1 run (Largest – UNLV 12-2)
• San Diego St. – 1 run, BYU – 1 run (Largest – SDSU 18-2)
• Mississippi St. – 3 runs, BYU – 1 run (Largest – Miss. St. 24-5)
• St. Mary’s – 3 runs, BYU – 0 runs (Largest – St. Mary’s 15-3)

It comes as no surprise that the only time BYU had more runs than their opponent (Utah), they won the game. Also no surprise that the only two times they had a larger run (Utah and Utah St.) they won.

In the other seven games they had fewer runs, or the opponent had a larger run, or both. Nevada’s run late in the season opener sealed it. Houston’s run early in the second half put that game out of reach. In every loss the Cougars have trailed by double-digits, and the story has been basically the same each time except for the UNLV  and Illinois St. games.

In that one BYU fell behind by double-digits in the first half, but put together a run of their own to come back and send it into overtime before losing on a buzzer-beater.

All in the Head

And most of the problem comes down to a lack of mental focus. When BYU is playing well they play sharp basketball on both ends of the court. In every loss they’ve played good basketball for at least the first 10 minutes.

But once they allow their opponent to start a scoring run, things completely fall apart. BYU’s offensive ball movement stalls and the Cougars settle for bad shots. They over-pursue on defense and lose their rotational soundness.

Basically, they panic.

Instead of stopping those runs short, they give up giant runs like 11-0 (Houston), 18-2 (SDSU), 24-5 (Mississippi St.), and 15-3 (St. Mary’s).

Then they’re left playing catchup the rest of the game, and aside from the UNLV and Illinois St. games they haven’t been able to put together a run of their own before it’s too late.

It could be lack of discipline from the players. It could be lack of control from the coaches. It could be a “here we go again” attitude because it’s happened so often.

In reality, it’s probably a mix of all three.

But until the Cougars can learn to focus when the going gets tough, it’ll just keep getting tougher.