BYU men's basketball: Cougars want more from post

PROVO — Just because BYU likes to run up and down the basketball floor doesn't mean the Cougars have a disregard for scoring in the post.

Actually, coach Dave Rose's philosophy is quite the contrary. If the Cougars can't get a good scoring chance in transition, Rose prefers that his team's shots either come from in the post, or at least after the ball has been kicked back out from the post.

That's why Rose was a little disappointed in the fact that he got only 10 points on 5-of-17 shooting from his three centers in last week's exhibition win over Trinity Western.

"We need to be more efficient than that," Rose said.

In tonight's second exhibition game at the Marriott Center, this one against Central Washington, the Cougars are hoping for a big improvement in the post-position output after a couple of practices in which the things that were lacking last time out were emphasized.

"We just need to get back to getting low-post touches," center Chris Miles said. "Even in the scrimmage, even though we shot it pretty well, we were a little too far off the block and we're not leaving enough spacing for our entire team, and that makes it more difficult for our team to score more consistently."

Even without the reminder from Rose and his staff, Miles said he and Jackson Emery figured it out on their own that something was amiss in the Cougars' spacing.

"Catching that ball down deep has always been an emphasis of our offense ever since I got back from my mission. And Jackson and I were talking after practice the other day about how something just wasn't quite right. He didn't have the space he needed and I wasn't getting the kind of looks I like. So we watched some film and figured it out."

Rose, besides wanting more output from the post position and a little improvement in each player's game, would also like to see his players show more trust in each other and do a better job of playing together.

"I want to play with a lot more urgency possession by possession. I think our team has practiced that way the last couple of days, and hopefully we'll be able to go out and transform that into a game situation," he said.

The Wildcats are a Division II team that plays in the Great Western Athletic Conference. Last year, they had an 18-7 mark. Last week, they lost to Washington 77-48.

NOTES: Sophomore forward Noah Hartsock, who sprained an ankle last week and missed the Trinity Western exhibition, is back practicing and is expected to play tonight. Last year, he missed almost a month with a similar injury. "It just shows that he's in a lot better shape and a lot better condition, and he can heal quicker, so we hope to get him some minutes," Rose said.