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It’s been a time of introspection and in-depth dialog for the BYU basketball program.
The day after the Cougars’ beautiful loss at lowly Pacific final Saturday, senior leaders Alex Barcello and Te’Jon Lucas had emotional discussions at Barcello’s house with teammates — with out the coaches there.
Then, on Monday, the gamers and coaches talked collectively concerning the points that plagued them over the weekend, once they suffered back-to-back defeats at Santa Clara and at Pacific.
“We’re attempting to return to what we had been doing at first that helped us win video games,” stated guard Te’Jon Lucas. “In the end, that’s protection, guarding guys, stopping 3-point photographs and being probably the greatest defensive groups within the nation after which simply shopping for into the offense, taking part in with tempo and house and the making these further passes that coach at all times preaches on.”
What comes subsequent is one other tough problem. BYU hosts San Francisco Thursday and No. 2 Gonzaga Saturday.
“Truthfully, it was a tough week for us. However no less than we get to study from it. We've got a tricky week forward of us,” Lucas stated. “We’re very succesful. So we’ve received to return on the market and struggle. We’ve simply been striving on getting higher day by day so we will get some wins. … We’ve simply received to get again to the fundamentals. … I believe we’ll have the ability to come out of this on the correct aspect. It’s a superb studying level for us.”
Lucas stated the tone of the conferences was about “being 100% sincere with one another. … Me and Alex, that is our final 12 months. We’re going to do no matter we will to assist guys to play to the perfect of their potential.”
Coach Mark Pope appreciates the senior management on his workforce as they battle by way of what he known as “a very messy development course of” at this stage of the season.
“If you get punched within the face and also you’re attempting to determine if you are able to do it and if you happen to can determine solutions and pull collectively and elevate one another up, we’re counting on our veteran leaders proper now. And I’m having conversations with younger guys about buoying up their teammates, too,” Pope stated. “That’s what we’ve spent the final depressing and terrible and actually lovely final couple of days having actually, actually onerous, emotional conversations with one another inside our workforce, attempting to dig deep. That’s the wonderful thing about adversity. It forces you to do such deep dives to search out out methods to be higher. Then it rips you aside and exposes you. You then get to rebuild your self. It’s superior. It’s an unimaginable course of. It’s a brilliant enjoyable course of while you come out the opposite finish profitable. That’s a very powerful half. I've quite a lot of confidence on this group that they’ll do this. Proper now, we’re combating onerous.”
There’s a laundry record of issues that had been uncovered final weekend.
“We had some transition protection points, we had some rebounding points, we had some points by way of our decision-making on the offensive finish,” Pope stated. “We had some points with game-plan issues. It’s not one factor to level to. It’s quite a lot of alternative ways we will get higher.”
Pope and his workers have pored over analytics to attempt to determine find out how to get higher. He stated he’s not essentially fascinated about altering the beginning lineup.
“I can put guys that perform higher on the ground collectively extra usually. That’s our focus proper now,” he stated. “That may end result within the change within the beginning lineup. However that’s probably not going to matter. What issues is, can I get the fellows collectively on the ground that match collectively the perfect extra usually? That’s actually essential for us. … Clearly, my merging of analytics and really feel was not profitable final week.”
The Cougars additionally suffered some “misfortune,” Pope stated, in each losses.
“We had some unlucky stretches that had been actually bizarre,” he stated. “We had a stretch the place we had eight straight possessions in opposition to Pacific and 5 of them in a row I'd grade as nice possessions early within the sport. For no matter, motive, they ended up in a miss or a miscue.’
However one factor his workforce can management is taking part in with a way of urgency that was lacking at occasions, notably in opposition to Pacific.
BYU trailed by 13 with two minutes remaining earlier than staging a livid rally and chopping the deficit to 2 factors with a bit underneath one minute remaining, spurred by a full-court press.
Pope desires to see that type of urgency from the start of video games.
“Essentially the most actual message we take from it, there was an elevated intensified urgency late within the sport. That’s not us. That’s not what we do,” he stated. “That has not been the character of this workforce. We're 100% pressing from the tip. It’s one thing that’s tremendous disconcerting to our guys. It’s one thing they really feel like they should treatment as a result of it hasn’t been us all season. An amazing lesson for us.”