Comments about ‘BYU basketball: Slow start doomed Cougars against Marquette’

I think the other teams figured out that they can get a jump on BYU by a full court man press against them from the outset. That slows BYU down and creates turnovers that lead to easy points. and as I said before, BYU's rebounding really dropped off toward the end of the year. Opposing teams getting way too many second chance points.

The following question is rhetorical and not in any way meant to disparage Coach Rose, his staff, or players. But, these slow starts are not just an "end of 2012 season" phenomena, but have been going on throughout the Rose era. Slow weak starts seem to be one of the hallmarks of Coach Rose's teams-a mindset as suggested by Zylstra. We see some of these same issues with Coach Mendenhall's football teams. How often do we see them get down 14-0, 21-0 early?

Is it because they are older, more laid-back, more mature players, due to missionary service? Is it a lack of killer instinct or motivation? Whatever, it is driving BYU fans crazy! At 18-5 many of us were tearing our hair out and tempted to turn off the tv.

And finally another rhetorical question: what has happened to the outside shooting by the guard line late in the season? Totally disappeared with one clunk after another. Can't wait for Tyler Haws to return.

Great re-building season Cougs! Looking forward to an even better season next year!!

Agreed on the slow starts being a BYU tendency. Even over the Jimmer years, they tended to drift along before exploding, usually in the 2nd half.

I think it might be due to the speed of play and conditioning of the Cougars. They put a lot of pressure on the opponents and they tend to wear down. Certainly, Iona came out with max effort and ultra pressure and clearly ran out of gas. 55 points in the first half, 17 in the 2nd.

Marquette was just too good for this freshman-dominated team, but the press was on and they made it exciting until they had to start fouling. But they'll be older next year, maybe better, and Haws will be back.

"I think the other teams figured out that they can get a jump on BYU by a full court man press"

It didn't help that the refs were against BYU from the outset, either.