BYU Basketball: The troubling lack of player development
By Shaun Gordon
The Regressors
Nick Emery
Emery had a monster freshman season in 2015-16. He averaged 16.3 points on 42.5% shooting and 38.3% shooting from deep. He was second on the team in both assists and steals, trailing only Kyle Collinsworth.
He took a small step backward as a sophomore, averaging just 13.1 points and seeing both his field goal and three-point shooting drop by a tenth of a percent. He led the team in steals, but saw his assists drop and his turnovers rise.
And after missing last season, he’s looked like a shell of his former self after missing the first nine games of this season too. He’s averaging just five points, shooting 34.5% from the field and 28.6% from deep. His assist-to-turnover ratio is slightly better, but he’s averaging less than a steal per game and struggling with foul trouble.
Zac Seljaas
Like Emery, Seljaas played his best basketball as a freshman. He hit 49.4% of his field goals and 50% of his threes, acting as the perfect floor spacer for Collinsworth and Emery.
After returning home early from his mission with a shoulder injury, his shot was noticeably off last season, and he hit just 29.5% from distance. He’s improved that this year, upping his sharpshooting to 35.8%, but that’s nowhere near what he hit just a few years ago.
Seljaas has improved his defense, driving, and cutting, but his shot is still his greatest asset, and it hasn’t panned out over the past two years.
Jashire Hardnett
Hardnett showed promise last season, due in large part to his quickness. He struggled to shoot the ball, though, hitting just 32.7% of his threes, which allowed opponents to sag off him and neutralize his speed.
His shooting has been even worse this year. He’s hitting just 44.7% of his field goals and a ghastly 23.7% from distance. For a team that has struggled to spread the floor, having a point guard who can’t hit a reasonable percentage of three-pointers just compounds the problem.
And for a point guard he’s never been a great facilitator. Last year he dished out just 2 assists per game, and that number has dropped this season to just 1.7 per contest.