This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If you are a night owl, I suppose you are happy about the 9 p.m. MST tipoff time for tonight's BYU-San Francisco basketball game at the Marriott Center.
If you are a newspaper reporter or editor, probably not so much.
But that's life in the West Coast Conference, which schedules its games to accommodate television viewership in the Pacific Time Zone, where nine of its 10 teams reside.
Having destroyed the Dons 99-68 back on Jan. 3 in San Fran, BYU is a 13-point favorite tonight, which seems about right.
The Cougars have lost two straight, while USF has won two of its last four, but is coming off a heartbreaking loss at home to Loyola Marymount after having upset Pepperdine. The Dons lost 70-69 when LMU's Evan Payne sunk a putback at the buzzer.
I asked BYU coach Dave Rose if the Dons will put up a better fight in Provo. Obviously, he thinks they will.
"Well, we hit 15 threes in that game," Rose said. "That formula for us, especially since we have been playing the four-guard lineup, has been really successful and it has been the nights when we are not making shots at that pace where it has been different.
So we will have to see. I think that the way they play and how they are trying to force you into turnovers so they can get that ball on the other side [creates open shots, but the potential for turnovers]. They do a lot of different types of defenses. They will trap you and they will run at you, blitz your ball screen all the way to the pickup to try to take that thing from you, which leaves guys open.
We will see how we respond to that.
But I think we've played 22 games and we've hit 15 threes in two of those games. So I would expect probably a different game than the last one."
Rose was asked why BYU can't seem to win close games lately after the 77-74 setback at San Diego in which the Cougars blew a nine-point second-half lead. Actually, the Cougars rallied in the final minute and had a chance to win after having fallen behind by seven points with 1:50 remaining.
"Well, I think you try not to dwell on that. That's all the outside people want to talk about. We have finished a lot of games that were close that we actually won, too. I think that's the way you look at it, is that your guys know that it is something that we are capable of doing, something that we are good at, so let's just take the next challenge."
What defines a "close" game?
The Cougars have won three games decided by five points or fewer: 95-90 over Long Beach State, 79-77 over Stanford and the overtime game against UMass. They won 77-71 in OT, but obviously the game was closer than a five-pointer in regulation.
"I think the biggest thing for us right now is to become a really consistent rebounding team," Rose said. "If we can improve our rebounding, if we can grab misses on the first try, it will really lead to positive things.
And then on the offensive end, when we get that opportunity, to jump up and stick it. I think that we've had some games get away from us where we haven't been able to finish the defensive play. Hopefully we can do that with the rebound."
So the Cougars start the second half of the WCC season with a 5-4 league record, same as it was last year at this juncture. The Cougars went 8-1 in the back half in 2014, losing only to Pacific on the road. With Nate Austin probably out for the rest of the season and all the deficiencies inside, it seems highly unlikely history will repeat itself.
But who knows?
Rose talked about BYU being flat and not progressing during his podcast on Monday at a barbecue joint in Orem, then clarified what he meant on Wednesday in his press briefing.
"I think what I was really concerned about the most was our guys didn't seem to be together as much. I didn't mean that guys were selfish or going sideways but it just seemed like we would have a disappointing loss, and then what we tried to do was we tried to fix it by ourselves in our own way.
What I have really seen in the last couple of days with our guys is that they are really committed to each other, which is a good thing," he said.
I think our practices have been a lot more effective this week than maybe they have been the last couple of weeks, and hopefully we will see some positive results from that. I have got a lot of confidence in these guys. It is a little bit different than what we thought it would be at this point, but I think our guys are up for the challenge and will go for it."