Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
BYU closes out its two-game exhibition slate Saturday night at the Marriott Center, hosting Division II foe Alaska-Anchorage--a team with some strong ties to Utah, coached by a guy with whom Dave Rose once wanted to work.
The Seawolves feature three LDS returned missionaries, two of whom played their high school ball in the Beehive State; one of those players (Brad Mears from Bingham HS) went on to play at Snow College, where he was a teammate of Seawolves guard Teancum Stafford--whose sister Behka was a BYU basketball star in the 1990s.
UAA head coach Rusty Osborne was, like Rose, a product of the Houston, Texas high school system.
"I've known Rusty for a long time," said Rose after Friday's Marriott Center practice. "When I was (the head coach) at Dixie College, we spoke two or three times about the possibility of working together down there, but he has stayed up there in Alaska for quite a while."
Osborne has been on the Seawolves staff for 22 seasons, the last nine as the head coach.
"He does a great job of getting guys in there that can play his system," says Rose. "The system is really tough to defend. They're a three-point shooting team...and put a lot of pressure on you. They'll shoot it quick, early in the clock...they'll shoot it late in the clock."
"We're going to see a lot of different looks."
BYU guard Tyler Haws concurred with his coach's assessment, noting of UAA that "they've got a bunch of shooters; they're going to be ready to play."
"We've got to get out on shooters and control the pace of the game, just play the way we play."
*******
Rose said on Friday that he plans to start a four-guard lineup, as he did in the Cougars' exhibition opener with Colorado College. In that game, guards Matt Carlino, Kyle Collinsworth and Haws were joined by wing Anson Winder, with freshman Eric Mika starting in the post.
During Friday's practice session, freshman Frank Bartley played in place of Winder with the first group, while junior post Nate Austin replaced Mika down low.
"I think we will (start four guards)," said Rose, "just to kind of get a look. We've started two post guys for a long time, we know what that kinda looks like."
"We like the combination of guys that we have; we'll mix it up a little bit, but I think we'll start four smaller guys."
Rose reiterated that lineups and rotations are still a work in progress, saying he's comfortable with the collection of talent represented by his ten scholarship players on the 2013-14 active roster.
"I'm pretty confident in the ten guys that we have," Rose said. "How many minutes, and how that all works out, that will be interesting. Early in the year, matchups will really determine some of our personnel lineups, until we get really comfortable with what we're doing."
"I've got a lot of young guys that are playing, and I think sometimes when you do that, you end up matching up a little bit to (opponents') size, or maybe their personnel, and hopefully we can get to a point where we can do what we want and have other people try and match up to us.
"Two weeks from now, we'll be talking and (we'll have) three or four games under our belt, so we'll see."
*******
Asked about his group of post players that includes two two freshman in Mika and Luke Worthington, Rose said "I'm really comfortable with how they're learning our system; a little worried about the inexperience and foul trouble, and those kind of things, but I like what I've seen from these guys in practice."
Rose said as a 12-man collective, his team "has really progressed in the last four weeks of practice." He says Saturday night's game will be another gauge of that progression.
"The main thing is you want to play well," Rose says. "You want to kind of see some of the habits you've tried to instill in your players during practice, in the game."
"We want to win," said Haws after practice. "We want to get off to a good start and start winning games. It's fun to get out there and play against someone else; we're beating each other up in practice."
*******
Tomorrow night's game tips at 7:00 p.m. in the Marriott Center; pregame coverage begins on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM at 6:00.
You can hear Friday's post-practice interviews with Rose and Haws in "Cougar Cuts," above left.
