BYU Basketball: Keys to beating a streaking Santa Clara squad

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(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /

Ball Movement

While Santa Clara isn’t the best offensive team, they’re a good defensive team, especially recently. They’re holding opponents to just 42.1% shooting, including 30.4% from deep. In conference play they’re allowing just 61 points per game.

The Cougars already struggle from the three-point line, and now they face off against a team that defends that line well.

Fortunately, BYU has done a good job moving the ball around and finding the open shot, averaging 15.8 assists per game, but they’ll slip into lengthy stretches where that ball movement stalls.

It happens most often when TJ Haws is on the bench. He’s by far the team’s leader in assist rate, and his ability to get into the lane and make the right pass drives the offense.

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On Thursday night the Cougars slipped into a prolonged scoring drought, scoring just eight points in the final nine minutes of the first half before Rylan Bergersen’s three-pointer at the buzzer.

Part of the drought came because the far end of BYU’s bench was on the court. Those players didn’t move the ball nearly as well, and one of the players on the bench during that stretch was Haws.

The Cougars slipped into those stretches of stalled movement even before Thursday’s game. It tends to happen when the other team starts to make a run, and BYU tightens up, increasing the dribbles and decreasing the passes.

Against Santa Clara, BYU has to move the ball well and find the open shot. The Broncos do a good job of forcing misses on contested shots, so the Cougars have to find open ones.

And hit them.

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