BYU Basketball: What the heck is going on?

BYU Basketball has lost three games in a row with Gonzaga looming.

Eight days ago we were wondering if this was the best BYU Basketball team that Mark Pope had coached. The Cougars were 17-4 with a 5-1 record against Quad One teams. The Cougars had no bad losses and looked as though they were going to cruise to the number two seed in the WCC with no issues at all.

This was a tweet from just last week from one of the more reliable and level headed podcasts BYU Sportsnation. It was a valid question.

Then the last week happened.

It started with an odd but forgivable loss to Santa Clara on the road. Weird, sure, but forgivable. It was then followed up by the worst loss possibly ever in BYU Basketball history against Pacific. It was capped off with an embarrassing 73-59 home loss to San Francisco.  It almost doesn’t even matter on Saturday (barring a miracle win of course) as that won’t really stack up anything else to this awful stretch.

What is going on? Sure, we all know about the depth issues at forward, but those issues were there when the Cougars were on a 8-1 run with multiple Quad One and Two wins. What has changed? Depth and aggressive play.

Depth

BYU Basketball has some good players, but outside of Barcello, they don’t have any ‘Special” players. Fousse is really good down by the basket. Johnson and Knell can be good shooters outside. Lucas can get into the lane with ease. But all of these guardable. As the Cougars have given teams more game film to watch it becomes easier to figure out how to guard these guys.

Let’s take Fousse for example. In the five games before this three game losing streak, he had averaged 7.6 shot attempts per game. In the last three games that has gone down to 3.3 attempts per game.

Another player we can look at is Caleb Lohner whose season average was 6.8 points per game on .390 shooting but has averaged just 3 points per game on .180 shooting. While this doesn’t seem drastic, if that season average stays the same, the Cougars beat both Pacific and Santa Clara.

I could keep going on and on with different players, but the reality is with Mark Pope only playing eight guys consistently with very specific skill sets, teams have figured out how to guard them. And the way they’ve done that best is with aggressive defense/offense.

Aggressive Play

Do I buy into the idea that the WCC refs are upset BYU is leaving therefore the Cougars aren’t getting any calls? Not completely, but that may be a thing, I’m not sure. Do I buy into the idea that the refs are allowing pushing and shoving and not calling anything? Absolutely.

The issue is that Mark Pope’s offense is set around passing the ball around the perimeter and getting mid to long range shots. There isn’t much penetration towards to the hoop which leads to less fouls and less free throws. Teams who shoot the ball typically average between 1.1-1.2 points per possession. Teams who get to the free throw line average between 1.3-1.4 points per possession.

BYU just doesn’t get to the free throw line that often. The team ranks 185th in the nation in free throws attempted per game and 202nd in point percentage from free throws. On the season they average about three free throw attempts per game less than their opponents.  If we take out garbage free throws (at the end of the game) that number jumps up to nearly 4.5 free throw attempts per game.

Teams have figured that out and in the last three games if you take out garbage time free throws, the difference is 45-62 or about 5.3 free throw attempts less per game. BYU’s opponents are figuring out that the free throw line is a great place to beat the Cougars and it is clearly working.

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Obviously these aren’t the only issues that the team is facing. This team has zero confidence right now and the bubble is looking really scary right if you are a BYU basketball fan.

What do you think the issue is? Leave a comment.