Early Thoughts on next year

[byufan4ever]

Time for the Kaufusi experiment to end. We've seen some flashes of brilliance from him, but he hasn't consistently improved over 2 full seasons. Better to try to bring in a juco guy.

I still want Kaufusi to succeed! He hasn't been detrimental to the team and I don't think we can say he's been a disaster (not your words). If there's other better bigs current on the team, fine let them get the play time. But I wouldn't go out of my way to replace him. If he could just improve his footwork and not throw his elbow on his post moves he could be quite decent.

[Gunk]

Time for the Kaufusi experiment to end. We've seen some flashes of brilliance from him, but he hasn't consistently improved over 2 full seasons. Better to try to bring in a juco guy.

I still want Kaufusi to succeed! He hasn't been detrimental to the team and I don't think we can say he's been a disaster (not your words). If there's other better bigs current on the team, fine let them get the play time. But I wouldn't go out of my way to replace him. If he could just improve his footwork and not throw his elbow on his post moves he could be quite decent.

Don't forget we have Hamson (walk-on) next season too. Assuming the rumors aren't true and Kaufusi keeps playing hoops, we'll have a cupboard full of bigs - Mika, Davis, Kaufusi, Childs, Dastrup, Hartsock, Hamson, Shaw, Aytes, and Pingree (assuming he's allowed to walk on again). That's 2/3 of the team covering 2 positions.

After the bigs, it's all guards - Emery, Chatman, Beo, Haws, Bryant, and Guinn (walk-on). That's six guys to cover 3 positions. Calvert and Ainge were really dumb to leave. We could really use Toolson.

There's only 15 roster spots. If Kaufusi stays, either Pingree, Guinn, or Hamson will be asked to leave. If Kaufusi opts to play football, the roster scrunch is solved but that still leaves 6 players to cover 3 positions, only 2 of which have any legit playing experience at BYU (Guinn logged just 26 min of play this entire season).

The pendulum has completely swung the other way. We're now short on 6'6" skinny Mormons that can shoot.

Haws and Bryant (transfer from Elon that sat out this season) are really the only two PGs of the bunch. Chatman, Emery, Beo, and Guinn are SGs. We don't have a SF. At 6'5", Guinn, a walk-on, could compete for the 3 spot. That makes me nervous. Chatman at 6'5" will likely play SF, but he's on the short side for a SF and who backs him up? Guinn? Still makes me nervous.

We've got too many bigs (can't believe I said that). If I'm Rose, I don't try to convince Kaufusi to stay. I invite Pingree and Guinn to play on the practice squad in the event there's a pre-season injury, and I go out and get a couple of 6'7" shooting forwards.

Team is going to be raw. I'd temper expectations. Look for a late season run. 2017/18 season will be epic.

[BlueK]

Time for the Kaufusi experiment to end. We've seen some flashes of brilliance from him, but he hasn't consistently improved over 2 full seasons. Better to try to bring in a juco guy.

I still want Kaufusi to succeed! He hasn't been detrimental to the team and I don't think we can say he's been a disaster (not your words). If there's other better bigs current on the team, fine let them get the play time. But I wouldn't go out of my way to replace him. If he could just improve his footwork and not throw his elbow on his post moves he could be quite decent.

Footwork and finesse is a problem for lots of football players trying to switch to basketball. Most don't have great instincts on the court. Not a big deal in pickup ball, but at this level of the game it is. But Kaufusi is getting better, and the numbers indicate that BYU was a better team when he was out there. I think it's great if the others play if they're better, but we still need him for depth and for mixing things up. Every big on the team next year will be different and will present different challenges to opponents. We have a chance to be really good if our guards can be trained to keep the bigs involved. And it will work both ways. When defenses are worried about the bigs it will leave a lot of room for the guards to do their thing also.

[E-Zone15]

Time for the Kaufusi experiment to end. We've seen some flashes of brilliance from him, but he hasn't consistently improved over 2 full seasons. Better to try to bring in a juco guy.

I still want Kaufusi to succeed! He hasn't been detrimental to the team and I don't think we can say he's been a disaster (not your words). If there's other better bigs current on the team, fine let them get the play time. But I wouldn't go out of my way to replace him. If he could just improve his footwork and not throw his elbow on his post moves he could be quite decent.

Don't forget we have Hamson (walk-on) next season too. Assuming the rumors aren't true and Kaufusi keeps playing hoops, we'll have a cupboard full of bigs - Mika, Davis, Kaufusi, Childs, Dastrup, Hartsock, Hamson, Shaw, Aytes, and Pingree (assuming he's allowed to walk on again). That's 2/3 of the team covering 2 positions.

After the bigs, it's all guards - Emery, Chatman, Beo, Haws, Bryant, and Guinn (walk-on). That's six guys to cover 3 positions. Calvert and Ainge were really dumb to leave. We could really use Toolson.

There's only 15 roster spots. If Kaufusi stays, either Pingree, Guinn, or Hamson will be asked to leave. If Kaufusi opts to play football, the roster scrunch is solved but that still leaves 6 players to cover 3 positions, only 2 of which have any legit playing experience at BYU (Guinn logged just 26 min of play this entire season).

The pendulum has completely swung the other way. We're now short on 6'6" skinny Mormons that can shoot.

Haws and Bryant (transfer from Elon that sat out this season) are really the only two PGs of the bunch. Chatman, Emery, Beo, and Guinn are SGs. We don't have a SF. At 6'5", Guinn, a walk-on, could compete for the 3 spot. That makes me nervous. Chatman at 6'5" will likely play SF, but he's on the short side for a SF and who backs him up? Guinn? Still makes me nervous.

We've got too many bigs (can't believe I said that). If I'm Rose, I don't try to convince Kaufusi to stay. I invite Pingree and Guinn to play on the practice squad in the event there's a pre-season injury, and I go out and get a couple of 6'7" shooting forwards.

Team is going to be raw. I'd temper expectations. Look for a late season run. 2017/18 season will be epic.

Jakob Hartsock 6' 8" 205 is a SF who can also play a stretch 4, just like Zac Seljaas 6' 7" 215. IMO, Zac is a better passer (Zac had 325 assists in High School), but look at what kinds of shots they took this year:
Zac Seljaas: 35-1 start, 698 minutes (19.9), FG 88-178 (49.4%), 3pt 68-136 (50.0%) FT 23-33 (69.7%)
Jakob Hartsock: 24-2 starts, 146 minutes (6.1), FG 11-42 (26.2%), 3pt 10-36 (27.8%) FT 0-0 (N/A)

So from 2 point range Zac was 20-42 (47.6%) and Jakob was 1-6 (16.7%), they both would rather shoot from 3 than from 2: Zac shot 76.4% of his shots from 3 and Jakob shot 85.7% of his shots from 3.
The point is Coach Rose recruited Zac Seljaas 6' 7" 215, Jakob Hartsock 6' 8" 205, Dalton Nixon 6' 7" 215, and Jake Toolson 6' 5" 205. All four of them are very good 3pt shooters:
In High School---
Zac Seljaas made 217 3's at Bountiful High School
Jake Toolson made 189 3's at Highland High School in Gilbert, Arizona
Dalton Nixon made 111 3's at Orem High School
Bartlesville High School stats aren't as easy to find, so I have never been able to find how many 3's Jakob made. Practice reports say Jakob has Jimmer range and will often drank 3's way behind the 3pt line.
FWIW, Nick Emery made 269 3's at Lone Peak and TJ Haws made 264.

[scott715]

I heard we are looking for a graduate transfer SF for next season.

[BYULV]

Our bigs coming in are supposed to be mobile! Full court players. Lone peak with Mika's ran like crazy and we saw Mika get up and down the court his freshman year. I say we play our best three guards/wings with two mobile bigs, Mika and Childs or Mika and Kaufusi or Mika and dastrup (not as familiar with his game) or even Mika and Hartsock.

I have played with and watched Hartsock play and he can definitely shoot better than he showed this year. I think he never really got into a sustained rhythm. He also has some good post moves, but seems too love staying out by the three line. He isn't the fastest player, but he will work as hard as anyone and will likely emerge, like his brother did, as he develops and be a quality player for us.

[E-Zone15]

I heard we are looking for a graduate transfer SF for next season.

And where would that scholarship come from? Open scholarships are coming from 1 Cory Calvert (transfer), 2 Kyle Collinsworth, 3 Chase Fischer, and Zac Seljaas (mission). New players coming in needing scholarships are: 1 TJ Haws, 2 Eric Mika, 3 Payton Dastrup, and 4 Yoeli Childs.

[scott715]

I would assume that there is someone who is considering leaving. Maybe Aytes. I also heard that Hamson hurt his knee however he is a walkon.

[BlueK]

This grad transfer from U of Houston is visiting BYU tomorrow. 6-3 guard with a medical redshirt last year, so he has one more year of eligibility. He's graduated so he can play immediately. Averaged around 9ppg with over 5 assists per game as a soph and jr. at UH. We only have 5 guards for next year so he would add nicely to the depth in case of injury. His dad played with Coach Rose at UH. Either the coaches rate him ahead of Konner Frey or Frey seems to want to go elsewhere. It's hard to tell.

http://www.vanquishthefoe.com/byu-baske ... e-transfer

was a 4* recruit coming out of HS:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/baske ... 51/lj-rose

[BlueK]

Looks like he follows Elijah Bryant on twitter, so if they're friends that probably helps. He has had some injury trouble off an on through his career, it looks like. But if his time off from last season gave him time to recover, it looks like he could be a nice addition for us, especially if he can play good defense.