Baylor beat BYU 86-83 on Saturday in the game of the weekend as determined by FanMatch. I was there. Here is what I saw.<\/p>\n
Perry Jones is good at playing basketball<\/b>
\nThe best thing about the game-watching experience was witnessing Perry Jones. Some games, he is more potential than production. In this game, he was productive as well, to the tune of a career-high 28 points. He made two three-pointers, his first long-range makes of the season, and he showed off some post moves in the second half. Jones still struggles in the rebounding department, and this was a factor in this game as well. In fact, it\u2019s a pretty big issue for Baylor as a whole right now. Even playing a weak schedule, they haven\u2019t rebounded well on either end of the floor.<\/p>\n
The first 14 rebounds went to BYU<\/b>
\nYou watch enough games and you see some crazy things. When Baylor assistant A.D. for communications Heath Nielsen showed me the game stats after the second media timeout and pointed out that the Bears had zero rebounds, I chuckled. I mean, I\u2019ve seen some spectacular gaffes by the scorer\u2019s table, but that this one topped them all. Every single Baylor player had zeroes in the rebounding columns. However, I was assured it was real. Which left me wondering just how unusual this was. <\/p>\n
Most consecutive rebounds to start a game since November 2009<\/p>\n
15 12\/20\/10 UConn vs. Coppin State\n14 12\/17\/12 BYU vs. Baylor\n14 2\/12\/11 Marshall vs. East Carolina\n12 2\/10\/11 Oral Roberts vs. UMKC\n12 3\/18\/11 Duke vs. Hampton\n12 12\/04\/12 Michigan State vs. Nebraska Omaha<\/pre>\nWe\u2019re approaching 13,000 games in the play-by-play database, so this was a truly amazing occurrence, especially in a game that figured to be competitive. Statistical oddities aside, this highlights the rebounding issues that Baylor faces. For a team chasing an at-large bid, BYU is a below-average offensive rebounding team and yet they would grab 19 of their 40 reboundable misses in this game. <\/p>\n
Like most shot-blocking teams, the Bears will give up more offensive boards than the typical team with their size. And since Baylor doesn\u2019t have a lot of girth, they can get pushed around even when they aren\u2019t attempting blocks anyway. Baylor does enough things well \u2013 even after BYU\u2019s 21-37 performance on two-point shots, the Bears are still second nationally in two-point percentage allowed – that on most nights this won\u2019t matter, and on other nights they\u2019ll luck into good rebounding numbers. But when you\u2019re breaking down where things can go wrong for the Bears this season, rebounding on both ends of the court is at the top of the list.<\/p>\n
Pierre Jackson leads Baylor in usage<\/b>
\nI was a little stunned when preparing for the game to learn that Baylor\u2019s point guard tops the team in usage. True, Perry Jones has a comfortable lead in the percentage of shots taken while on the floor, and the difference between the two in terms of usage can be chalked up to turnovers. Still, for the first time I can remember, Jones was the obvious focal point of the offense in a competitive game. I don\u2019t know if this will be the beginning of a trend, but it should be. If someone is going to make questionable decisions, you\u2019d rather it be Perry Jones than Pierre Jackson. And because Jones is so good with the ball, he\u2019d have to be a lot more involved to even get to the threshold of making questionable decisions.<\/p>\nMatt Carlino is no Jimmer, but he\u2019s worth watching<\/b>
\nThe game featured the debut of point guard, and UCLA transfer, Matt Carlino. Unlike with Mike Moser<\/a>, Ben Howland seemed slightly distressed<\/a> when Carlino decided to leave Westwood last fall, which was odd because Carlino hadn\u2019t cracked Howland\u2019s rotation to that point. Carlino has been practicing against Jimmer Fredette for the better part of a year, and he\u2019s inherited some of Fredette\u2019s mannerisms. He already has the unconventional jump shot and the tendency to complain to the officials when the whistle goes against him. <\/p>\nBased on his first appearance in a BYU game, he\u2019s an upgrade on a team that needs a playmaker. For those still thinking BYU is a clear 3rd in the WCC regular season race, that didn\u2019t appear to be the case on Saturday. Once Carlino settles into the role, there\u2019s enough here (especially when Stephen Rogers returns from knee surgery in a month) to match what Gonzaga and Saint Mary\u2019s bring to the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baylor beat BYU 86-83 on Saturday in the game of the weekend as determined by FanMatch. I was there. Here is what I saw. Perry Jones is good at playing basketball The best thing about the game-watching experience was witnessing Perry Jones. Some games, he is more potential than production. In this game, he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}