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Their 53-game homecourt win streak was snapped, but the Cougars' conference home run continues after last night's 73-61 Marriott Center dispatching of TCU.
With the victory, BYU has won a continuing school and league record 25 straight conference home games.
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TCU coach Jim Christian was clearly disappointed, bordering on disgusted with his team's effort last night--the Frogs were down 21 at halftime and got no closer than 12 in the second half.
At the break, TCU had three times more turnovers than assists, and BYU was making the Frogs pay, outscoring TCU 10-0 in points off of turnovers and 10-3 on fast break points at intermission.
Christian said his guys failed to "focus" and follow the game plan in the first half, but he's not the first opposing coach to feel that way this season.
I get the sense that opposing coaches study the tape, assemble a game plan, tell their players and show their players what the Cougars like to do and do well, but that some players just don't believe BYU is as good as advertised until they're knee-deep into defending BYU's transition offense, and then it hits them: these guys can really play. At least, that's the feeling I get watching some of the teams from which BYU has run away this season.
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Christian called BYU "an excellent team," "an elite team" and "as good as anybody in the country."
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BYU is 2-0 in MWC play for only the second time in Dave Rose's four seasons as head coach, and the fifth time in 10 seasons of MWC competition.
Although BYU has the most conference titles and the best conference record since the league's inception, BYU has never opened 3-0 in MWC play. In fact, the last time BYU opened conference play 3-0 was 1995, when BYU started the WAC season 5-0.
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How important could a hot start be to the Cougars' conference title hopes this season? Well, consider this: in Rose's first three seasons, his regular season MWC record looked like this--
Games 1 through 5: 9-6.
Games 6 through 16: 30-3.
Wow.
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Rose has now coached 50 MWC regular season games. His record is 41-9. Double wow.
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Ratings roll...
Here's a sampling of some prominent national ratings after play Tuesday night (top 100 only):
Sagarin Ratings--
BYU: 9
Utah: 42
SDSU: 46
UNLV: 50
New Mexico: 84
TCU: 94
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Pomeroy Ratings--
BYU: 10
Utah: 32
SDSU: 33
UNLV: 63
New Mexico: 69
TCU: 93
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realtimerpi.com--
Utah: 21
BYU: 31
SDSU: 44
UNLV: 53
TCU: 81
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