BYU Basketball Exhibition vs. Southeast Oklahoma State

Dunkin' Davies

Oh basketball season, how I have missed you. Friday night's game against Southeast Oklahoma State (who???) was quite interesting. I was a little bit surprised at two members of the starting lineup: Of course there was Brandon Davies, Matt Carlino, and Tyler Haws . . . along with Josh Sharp (his dunk at the tipoff was amazing, but was it really THAT amazing?) and Craig Cusick. Hmmmm . . . Winder is injured (he wasn't even in uniform), so I can understand leaving him out, but what about Zylstra? Ambrosino? Delgado? Granted, they all got playing time, but I'm super curious why Sharp and, to a lesser extent, Cusick were on the starting lineup. It will be interesting to see how that changes as the season goes on.

Haws for 2

My second big surprise was true freshman Cory Calvert. He actually played a lot, and that kid can PASS. THE. BALL. He kind of blew my mind. He was attempting passes similar to the crazy ones Carlino did way too often last year . . . except he actually succeeded in getting them to their target without a turnover. (No offense, Matt. I still love you.) Behind-the-back, no look, or cross court, Cory was doing it all. And of course, the crowning moment of the evening was an awesome alley-oop to Davies (see the video below).

Now for the down side-- despite the blowout win (103 to 57), play in general in the first half was really sloppy. Wild passes were going out of bounds, several feet away from or above the intended receivers, and there was a whole lot of rolling around on the floor, fighting for the ball. It was just messy. I think maybe they had too much adrenaline. Matt Carlino was also looking eerily similar to last year, with his frantic scrambling around the court and behind-the-back passes to himself that don't go as planned. I'm not sure what happened at the half, but there was a definite shift in the second as the BYU boys got into more of a rhythm and seemed to be much more in sync.


Now we must check out some awesome Brandon dunks. The one in this video I actually got a really cool picture of from my perspective (see above, right):

And the second one in this video below was just AWESOME. There are no other words. As I said before, Cory Calvert has some mad passing skills!

I LOVE Brandon's scream, too! He gets so into it!

I'm glad we're starting out with a few easy games because, as the first half showed, I think they need the practice to get up to par before they start playing the big dogs in November and December. But mark my words-- they'll get there. And, unlike most of the "experts", I think they've got a definite shot at the WCC title this year. Yes, it would help if Elias Harris, Kevin Pangos, and Matthew Dellavedova (and his gigantic hideous mouth guard) would go away, but you've got to play the best to be the best. So I say bring it on!!! Go Cougars!!!