Rose: realigning expectations

[Brayden Green]

As I've thought about it I've realized my expectations for Dave Rose have been out of alignment with reality. Colored by the false Jimmer positives. In reality Dave Rose is a 20-22 wins a season, NIT caliber coach, with the occasional 1 and done in the NCAA tourney.

I completely disagree with this. At one point Rose made the NCAA tourney 6 times in a row. Jimmer was not around for 6 seasons. In fact, Jimmer really only started his last two seasons; his sophomore season he didn't really start games until late into the season. Taking out Jimmer's upperclassmen seasons, Rose has averaged 24.3 wins and made the NCAA tourney 6 out of 10 times (overall he's averaged 25.4 wins and 8/12 tourney appearances).

I know we're not Duke, Kentucky, or UCLA. I know we're a mid-major in basketball. But when I look at Gonzaga, Wichita St. and Butler I think why can't we do that? Is it asking too much to be one of the best mid-majors?

I am NOT ok with a regular NIT appearance and an occasional one-and-done in the NCAA tourney. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect BYU basketball to not miss the NCAA tournament in consecutive seasons.

the transfers out of the program have hurt the depth a lot. Guinn and Beo were supposed to be walkons and Leifson wouldn't have been here at all had eveyrone stayed. Every team needs role players. What I don't agree with is the idea that Rose pushed them all out. That just isn't true. Neilson is the only one that fits that category and for good reason. You only have to read Neilson's own words at the time to understand it. The team Neilson played on at BYU was extremely thin on big men and he wanted to play a soft Euro big style where he played away from the basket and shot a lot of threes. The coaches needed him to develop an inside game, which he refused to do. So he was cut loose. He has since changed his game probably because of the shock of the scholarship loss at BYU and has done at UVU exactly what Coach Pope was trying to get him to do at BYU. Now he's a much better player. The others left on their own because they didn't want to play second fiddle to the guys coming back from missions. Chatman was probably an exception to that with the law school situation.

Rose may not have pushed them all out but to believe that he could not have done a better job at keeping them is extremely naïve. If I'm an AD at any school and see a ton of transfers out I'm extremely worried.

So if you were a 19-20 year old kid you would hang around hoping that you could *maybe* play 5 minutes a game, when 15 minutes down the road you are promised starters minutes at a 4 year university under a legit D-1 coach? And most of your friends are coming to? And you don't even need to move if you don't want to?

You're being silly if you think that Rose could have done anything to prevent this. Absolutely silly.

Go back and read my post. You didn't quote my entire comment. Yep, you're right, Rose's ability to keep players in the program is about as good as his ability to teach defense or run an offense...

I read the whole thing. I quoted the part I had a comment on. Do you feel I misrepresented something? That wasn't my intent. Of you are referring to the part that the LP3 isn't a lock, well, they basically are. They are hands down the best players on the team not named Childs, even before everyone transfered out. 19 and 20 year olds don't want to be told to play hard defense and maybe they'll get some playing time in the next 3 years. I'm betting you wouldn't, if you had talent and an offer 15 minutes away from one of the guys that recruited you.

[Gunk]

If you are on the bench at BYU you have no hope of getting serious minutes or playing professional hoops. None. If I am a bench player and I want to play more than 5 - 10 minutes a game, I would seriously consider leaving. You only stay if you feel academically BYU offers something better/different than another school down the street. And, at an undergraduate level BYU really doesn't offer anything more special than any other college in the nation. The "mormon" environment is the only plus, and many don't view that as a plus.

Now, if BYU has a good team that's set to make some noise then there may be motivation to be a bench warmer and go along for the ride. But, that's not the case.

Still, Rose needs to figure out how to stop the bleeding. He just can't dismiss the transfers. He's losing quality players. He has to come up with enough incentive to keep these players on the roster.

[hawkwing]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

[byufan4ever]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

Agreed. Sure, every bench player wants starter minutes, who wouldn't? So how does Kentucky, Duke, UCLA, Utah, etc. keep their bench players? Taking this to an extreme, teams wouldn't have any bench at all, right?

Well, I was wanting some hard numbers for BYU's transfers compared to other schools and I found this site:

http://www.verbalcommits.com/transfers/2016

I really wish I could get that data into Excel and create a pivot table (I'm a pivot master lol) however the data gets all pasted into one cell so it just doesn't work. But, you can sort it by Previous School to see how many transfers each school had in 2016. BYU had 3 and browsing through the data sorted by team this is not all that un-common. Utah actually had 7!! Utah St. had 5! So maybe now the transfer thing isn't that bad...?

The other data I'd like to incorporate into the above transfer list is the previous team's record. Part of me thinks that a team like Kentucky and Duke that are loaded with high star bench players would be the most likely to have lots of transfers. Although the other part of me says that players love to be on winning teams so maybe teams with worse records tend to have more transfers. Villanova, who won it all last year, had zero transfers. North Carolina had zero. Kentucky - 2. Duke - 1. UCLA - 1. Interesting...

Finally, I looked at BYU's transfer trend:
2016 - 3 (Corey Calvert; Jordan Chatman; Jake Toolson)
2015 - 2 (Frank Bartley IV; Isaac Nielson)
2014 - 2 (Matt Carlino; Ian Harward)
2013 - 1 (Raul Delgado)
2012 - 2 ( Demarcus Harrison; Nick Martineau)

So, yes, we had more last year than we used to, but it wasn't a huge spike that I had thought. But maybe it's the quality of the players that left were higher than in previous years?

[BroncoBot]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

I'm fine with guys leaving, Why can't BYU fill those voids with more Chase Fishers? That's what concerns me. I'm sure part of it is that high profile recruits aren't jumping at the chance to live in Provo, UT.

It's a small recruiting pool that BYU has to work with already. BYU guys can certainly go elsewhere, play and excel. Not many guys want head to BYU though.

[BlueK]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

both Utah and USU have had a lot of transfers.

[BroncoBot]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

both Utah and USU have had a lot of transfers.

possibly more than BYU over the last 4-5 years. Agreed. Especially Utah who has had a ton of transfers in the last few years.

[BlueK]

Utah would have been good enough to go a few rounds in the NCAAs this year had they not lost so many players, IMO.

[snoscythe]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

both Utah and USU have had a lot of transfers.

It's a relief that schools who are going through coaching changes and rebuilding have similar transfer rates............right?

[Brayden Green]

It's amazing that other teams like Saint Mary's are able to maintain their benches for the most part year-to-year but BYU can't. Even teams I'm more familiar with like Utah or Utah State will lose a guy here or there, but nothing like the turnover BYU seems to experience every single year.

There has to be a reason for it.

I don't like to paint things with a broad brush, most things exist in shades of grey, but I do think that people spending 2-3 years away from basketball and conditioning is a problem for continuity. Guys come back and are expected to contribute and just aren't ready physically, and some guys that contribute amazingly like Seljaas (and Andrus to a lesser extent) leave for a few years. It's hard to get things gelling, and then we had an amazing class the last few years that I think complicated things (for the better). Now, if Mika actually does go then that complicates things again. (I think that the pros outweigh the cons if he does go, because we want to become an NBA factory).