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PROVO – Dixie State came on strong in the Marriott Center Friday and trailed by just a point with less than four minutes to play against heavily favored BYU.
BYU recognized the Red Storm as a challenging competitor, but the level to which the Cougars were pushed in their 96-85 victory was unexpected.
BYU Forward Stephen Rogers labeled this game as a wake-up for the team.
“Coach warned us day after day that they were going to come out fired, and maybe we didn’t take it too seriously,” Rogers said. “It’s a gut check and we got to learn from it and here on out come out to play.”
With 2:13 left in the first half the teams were tied at 33, but the Cougars managed to lead by six at the half.
Although the offense did increasingly improve throughout the game BYU coach Dave Rose felt that the defense never came together.
“At first we weren’t as dialed in as I would have liked, and then we got really focused in and started playing hard but we didn’t execute,” he said. “We had guys just going out on their own trying to make defensive plays. That will cause us problems.”
The Cougars rely greatly on their experienced bigs Noah Hartsock, Chris Collinsworth, and Brandon Davies on both sides of the court.
So, Hartsock experienced first hand the defensive detachment Rose described.
“It just felt like we were out of sync defensively,” Hartsock said. “We were playing one-on-one defensively but not as a team and that’s something we need to address.”
There are many visible changes with the BYU team this season. The Cougars don’t have the Emery Jackson-Jimmer Fredette duo, they have a new assistant coach, and the majority of the team bench is made up of freshmen.
“What concerns us is that we won the game offensively,” Rose said. “What has made our teams really good over the years is that defensively we’ve been better than we are right now.”
It is obvious that there is a need for extreme renovation in the defense department, while the exceptionally strong offense that Rose spoke of ultimately carried the Cougars to the 11-point win.
Brock Zylstra is one of the key players in the point progression of the team in filling the point guard position for the majority of the game.
“Brock’s a great player and he proved it,” Rogers said. “He can control the ball and control the pace of the game.”
Even with Zylstra’s exceptional ability to move the ball around, the game was still tight in the final minutes.
With less than two minutes to play and only a two-point lead, Rogers sunk a 2-pointer and two 3-pointers.
“We have guys that we believe are clutch,” Rogers said. “They can step up and hit the shots. Tonight it happened to be me, but I think every night it will be a different guy. Hopefully I’ll be able to find myself in that kind of situation again and capitalize but all of our guys can step up.”
The Cougars open the regular season Friday at Utah State.
