Good Ol' Letdown Games

[Brayden Green]

All we needed to do was land Loveridge. He was the power forward that we needed for the last 2-3 years.

The guy BYU is missing is another player who likes to camp out on the 3-pt line and take a lot of them?

He's taken 195 FGA this year. 137 of them have been 3s. He's not what BYU needs this year.

He has 92 rebounds this year in 731 minutes. Kaufusi has 92 in 376 minutes. So he wouldn't be helping on the rebound either.

He has 3 blocks. Which is one fewer than Chatman. So he wouldn't be helping on the defensive end either.

Sorry, but Loveridge, while a miss for BYU, wasn't a must-get for Rose and company.

Utah doesn't use or need him down low because they have a large amount of big talent. We don't. We are playing Nate Austin large minutes for the last 3 years. That wouldn't have happened with Loveridge here. He would have been more of a post presence and would have been great for us. He wanted to go north where he would get more bang for his buck instead of going to the crappy WCC.

Fortunately JImmer came on, Hartsock and Haws followed, and we have picked up recruiting. But it did dip, drastically so, the year we announced and our first year in the league. We relied on JC transfers and warm bodies that haven't worked out (Ambrosino, Bronson Kaufusi, others) down low, and it didn't work out. Once Davies and Hartsock were gone there was a huge hole in the middle. Loveridge would have filled that. That's all I am saying. We missed out on him because of the WCC. That is fact.

What facts are there to confirm your statement that Loveridge didn't come to BYU because of their WCC affiliation?

When he signed he sited conference affiliation as the "huge reason, for sure" of picking the Utes. They were 6-25 the year he committed, and BYU was definitely in the running.

[SpiffCoug]

When he signed he sited conference affiliation as the "huge reason, for sure" of picking the Utes. They were 6-25 the year he committed, and BYU was definitely in the running.

Can you provide a link to where he cited conference affiliation? I've been looking and I haven't found anything.

I did see where he said he liked going to Utah games on Sunday when he was in HS.

[hawkwing]

The fact is that BYU is a destination school and if BYU couldn't land inside guy recruits it's because they didn't want to come to a team where their talents would not be groomed or improved upon.

[SpiffCoug]

The fact is that BYU is a destination school and if BYU couldn't land inside guy recruits it's because they didn't want to come to a team where their talents would not be groomed or improved upon.

Of course, this presumes that Loveridge is an "inside guy." His trend of shooting more and more from the outside suggests that he is NOT and "inside guy" and is just another chucker from the outside - of which BYU has no problem finding.

[hawkwing]

The fact is that BYU is a destination school and if BYU couldn't land inside guy recruits it's because they didn't want to come to a team where their talents would not be groomed or improved upon.

Of course, this presumes that Loveridge is an "inside guy." His trend of shooting more and more from the outside suggests that he is NOT and "inside guy" and is just another chucker from the outside - of which BYU has no problem finding.

I wasn't specifically talking about Loveridge, he's a guy BYU missed on, but we need a real center and 4 guy, and I don't think that's really Loveridge.

[BoiseBYU]

BYU missed on Loveridge because Utah is safer.

[BlueK]

BYU missed on Loveridge because he never wanted to go to BYU. But Rose since hit a homerun on Yoeli Childs.

[Gunk]

We've forgotten about Mika too.

I think the lack of a big the last two years has more to do with a lack of options. Rose has a decent track record of getting available bigs to play at BYU - Hartsock, Davies, Plaisted, Mika. The holes - the Miles era, the Austin era - have more to do with a limited recruiting pool IMO than an inability to recruit or coach.

I don't get the criticism of players not developing. While there certainly have been many that seem to never improve, I think that has to do more with the player than coaching - you can lead a horse to water. Davies got noticeably better. As did Hartsock. Mika progressed during his one year and Kaufusi made strong strides during the season last year too.

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[Brayden Green]

It came down to decision time with Loveridge, BYU was very close, but the excitement of the Utes to Pac 12 combined with the letdown of the WCC was the final nail. People forget that Utah was very, very bad for a few years, so Loveridge was a huuuuuuuuge get for them. It was the beginning of turning the tide.

Rose does a great job coaching the limited talent that he gets. We won the MWC, which was a 3 bid and sometimes 4 bid league multiple times with 2 and 3 star talent.

There was a slight dip in recruiting when we announced the WCC and first played there. It is over now. No more last minute JC transfers.

[BYULV]

It came down to decision time with Loveridge, BYU was very close, but the excitement of the Utes to Pac 12 combined with the letdown of the WCC was the final nail. People forget that Utah was very, very bad for a few years, so Loveridge was a huuuuuuuuge get for them. It was the beginning of turning the tide.

Rose does a great job coaching the limited talent that he gets. We won the MWC, which was a 3 bid and sometimes 4 bid league multiple times with 2 and 3 star talent.

There was a slight dip in recruiting when we announced the WCC and first played there. It is over now. No more last minute JC transfers.

Is the dip due to transition to WCC or something else? Not sure you can say it was just because of the move. Besides, why complain about being in the WCC, it was a nice landing place for our other sports when we pulled the trigger on indepence. We could not have stayed in the MWC, when our football team left. If we had stayed, our football team and other sports would be much less relevant than they are now and we'd never see the games on TV and we'd be going to away games in Wyoming again. Not sure why we need to complain about the move to WCC when it is the hand we were dealt and for now we just make the most of it.

Ps: and our recruiting has been better than ever the past few years so the argument about WCC negatively affecting our recruiting doesn't seem to have any validity.