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PROVO — Three straight wins have BYU confident and playing its best basketball since it opened up West Coast Conference play.
“I feel like we’ve changed a lot since we were on the road last,” junior Matt Carlino said after a 91-68 win over Loyola Marymount Saturday night.
BYU outscored LMU by 24 in the second half to cruise to a victory. The change is becoming increasingly evident.
When the Cougars returned home from their first four-game losing streak in nearly a decade, they were desperate for a win and turned in their best defensive performance of the season to hold San Diego to 53 points.
Now, as BYU prepares for another four-game road trip, it has avenged both conference setbacks to Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine and has demonstrated significant strides in its ability to stop its opponent.
“You look at the next couple of weeks, and I think everybody knew how important these three home games were for us,” head coach Dave Rose said.
The adversity the young team was facing heightened when freshman Eric Mika — the anchor in the middle of the defense — suffered a hip contusion that forced him to miss the latter two games of the imperative homestand.
A mix of man-to-man and zone looks helped the Cougars halt Pepperdine’s 3-point shooting Thursday night, and a much more disciplined zone — compared to how it was implemented during the losing streak — forced 16 turnovers against LMU.
BYU begins identity reconstruction in win over San Diego
BYU began Saturday night as the worst team in the West Coast Conference in scoring defense. A week of practice helped the Cougars reconcentrate their defensive efforts to pick up an important win.“We’ve played that zone a little bit more, earlier in the season, and kind of became flat in it,” Rose said. “The rotations are really important, but what’s even more important is the energy and how active we are in it.”
Rose talked about the challenge of playing without Mika after the Pepperdine win but was pleased with the level of activity the guards were playing with. It has allowed him to employ four-guard lineups, which may give the team its best opportunities in transition, with the caveat that each of them cover down and help in the low post when necessary on the opposite end.
In addition to its continuously improving defense, BYU still owns the best scoring offense in the conference and has been giving opponents fits with its interchangeable pieces in the backcourt.
Junior Tyler Haws had 30-plus points for a second consecutive game in the win over the Lions Saturday, and sophomore Kyle Collinsworth recorded his 11th game of the season with at least 11 points, five rebounds and five assists; scoring a career-high 20 points in the process.
Although junior Skyler Halford struggled in the latest win after posting nights of 28 and 18 points in his previous two appearances, Carlino picked up the slack by contributing 18 points off the bench.
“It’s been kind of nice,” Carlino said of his sixth-man role, which began in the win over USD. “It’s maybe taken a little bit of the pressure off myself and it’s different, but it’s been nice so far. I mean, we haven’t lost.”
Part of the luxury the Cougars have that not many other WCC squads share is having a capable ball handler on the bench that can run their offense. Carlino looks comfortable playing his new part, and the versatile Collinsworth can slide into the four without much difficulty when Rose brings the lefty in.
“I think it takes a unique personality,” Rose said of the different positions Collinsworth has played. “We play him on both teams in practice — at the point on one team, and then at the four defensively on another team. … For him to be able to play as consistent as he is with the lines he has, with the assignments that we’re asking him, I think it’s the sign of a guy who’s got a real future.”
As for the bigs, junior Nate Austin has taken advantage of his spots to create offense in Mika’s absence, showing a knack for spacing opposing low-post players.
The 6-foot-11-inch Alpine native might even be more adept to occupy a stretch-four role with his smooth touch on jumpers, but his size almost makes him a de facto five on a team without much depth in the frontcourt. Austin only committed one foul in 30 minutes against LMU.
Meanwhile, junior Josh Sharp had his best effort of the 2013-14 campaign by scoring 10 points and grabbing four boards. Sharp also avoided foul trouble in his 27 minutes.
“He was a huge difference in the game,” Rose said of Sharp after beating LMU. “He doesn’t end up with a lot of rebounds, but he kept his guy away from the glass. At one time we were playing him at the five. … He fought really hard.”
BYU will likely get Mika back for Thursday’s game with San Francisco (11-7, 4-2), and though Haws and other players have recognized that they have to keep getting better defensively, the Cougars have the feel of a much more complete team since returning from their December road swing.
The task of reintegrating the talented freshman into the rotation shouldn't be difficult, but with its next two weeks of games away from home, BYU's level of progress is still to be determined. Kyle Spencer is a writer and a content manager for ksl.com. You can follow him on twitter @kyledspencer.
