BYU-San Diego State: Whew!

What a relief!!! This is a big win for the Cougars to stay in the conference championship hunt. Coming off two straight losses, this was a real gut-check, and the team really responded.

You could tell they worked on the things we thought they might such as utilizing the ball screens, shot selection, and getting more off of the bench.

Big ups to Lamont Morgan who really gave that bench spark we’ve been waiting for tonight. 12 huge points, and several assists really made the difference in the game.

Lee Cummard was more assertive tonight, he tried to be aggressive from the beginning and Coach Rice ran some great sets to get him the ball in the low post, where he can be most effective.

Lee is averaging 11.7 PPG on 34 percent shooting in losses and 18.2 PPG with 60 percent shooting in wins, so we obviously need him to be “the man.”

Tavernari only had a couple poor shots(air ball) and made some nice passes, but I can tell his confidence is down, as I’m sure the coaches had a film session dedicated to him after that 7-22 last game.

He’s seems a little unsure of what to do now, but hopefully he will continue to penetrate hard and take open shots with his feet set.

To review how we did on the other end: Keys to win defensively:

1) Control Lorenzo Wade: He had 18 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 assist. If we can keep him under 20 points and 4 assists this is a success he usually kills us! Lee did a good job guarding without fouling tonight.

2) Keep Ryan Amoroso 15 feet or more away from the basket. Great job, Chris Miles. He was a nonfactor with only 4 points and 1 rebound. He actually didn’t play that much.

3) No offensive rebounds for SDSU! Not bad, only 6 for them. We can live with that.

Next up: Utes