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PROVO — Unlike its season-opening exhibition game against Midwestern State last week, Brigham Young University will be facing a little more uncertainty and a little less control when the Cougars host Dixie State on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Marriott Center.
BYU coach Dave Rose, who was the head coach at Dixie when it was a junior college, feels a great difference in the two exhibition competitors.
“Midwestern was very much what we thought they were, a very up-tempo team,” he said. “This game will be a lot different. We didn’t have to encourage Midwestern at all to shoot, but Dixie will really grind it out. It’s a very good offensive team. They’ll screen hard.”
Dixie will really grind it out. It's a very good offensive team. They'll screen hard.
–Dave Rose
In their season-opening 84-82 home loss to Westminster Tuesday, Dixie's Griffon Jones and Dalton Groskreutz scored 16 points each, while McKay Massey rounded off the top three scorers with 12 points. Transfer Mitch Frei had four steals and four points in the final two minutes in the two-point loss to the Griffins.
Rose’s concerns with the offense seem to be valid with both teams’ stats creating an almost perfectly balanced scale. In BYU’s last game, Stephen Rogers scored 16 points, while Noah Hartsock added 15 and Charles Abouo finished with 14 points.
The Cougars will need to take care of business on both ends of the floor.
Ironically, the Cougars' Achilles' heel may be turnovers, but when it comes to rebounding, the Cougars are led by Brandon Davies, Hartsock, and Abouo, who combined for nearly 30 rebounds against Midwestern State.
Dixie State shot 76.7 percent from the line its last game, while the Cougars shot 63.3 percent, and Rogers stays focused on how to maintain control among the speed bumps of free throws.
“It’s all mindset," he said. "It doesn’t matter how many times we go to the line, as soon as that second shot goes through the net or comes off the rim we got to get it and go. We can never come out of that mindset of pushing the ball.”
Having a personal coaching past with Dixie State and with its current head coach, John Judkins, Rose looks forward to being in the eye of the storm with so many familiar faces.
“John and I coached against each other when I was at Dixie and he was at Snow (College), and we had some great battles,” Rose said. “He’s a great coach. I look forward to a really competitive game.”
