After Baylor’s Ja’Kobe Walter opened Tuesday’s game against No. 18 BYU with a 3-pointer, the Cougars promptly threw the ball away the first time they touched it, with Trevin Knell committing the turnover.
That was foreshadowing if there ever was such a thing, because the Bears would go on to make nine more triples en route to the 81-72 win, while the Cougars would commit 13 more turnovers.
“Yeah, it is a little bit new. But it is not something we haven’t seen. It is just the relentless nature of it.” — BYU coach Mark Pope on the Big 12 grind
BYU, now 0-2 in Big 12 play and 12-3 overall, took care of the ball reasonably well in nonconference play — averaging fewer than 10 per game — but is struggling in that department against bigger, quicker, longer and more athletic teams in the Power Six conference.
Cincinnati forced 18 BYU turnovers in that 71-60 win at the Marriott Center last Saturday. BYU is now 50th in the country in fewest turnovers per game — 10.6 — but that number is obviously rising.
“We can correct a lot of it,” coach Mark Pope said Wednesday afternoon in Provo, the Cougars having arrived back in town in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. “… We can do better.”
They better, and quickly.
Next up for the Cougars is a cross-country road trip to face Central Florida at Addition Financial Arena in Orlando on Saturday (2 p.m. MST, ESPN+). The Knights (1-1, 10-4) are flying high after stunning No. 3 Kansas 65-60 at home Wednesday night. That after they were picked to finish dead last — 14th — in the Big 12.
And here’s more troubling news for the turnover-prone Cougars: UCF is No. 13 in turnovers forced per game, getting 16.7 an outing with coach Johnny Dawkins’ attacking, pressing style. Kansas was forced into 18 turnovers Wednesday in suffering its second defeat, and UCF students stormed the court to celebrate what an Orlando Sentinel headline called the “biggest win in UCF history.”
The newspaper reported that the crowd of 9,469 fans “was on its feet and loud the entire way, and it energized the Knights.”
It is into that atmosphere that the reeling Cougars venture Saturday. BYU has now lost seven straight true road games, dating back to last season. They downed San Diego 68-48 at Jenny Craig Pavilion on Jan. 7, 2023, and haven’t broken through since on an opponent’s home court.
Their first item of business should be taking care of the ball.
“Now, you don’t get to cherry pick your turnovers,” Pope said, noting that a few of the turnovers Tuesday were due to setting illegal screens on offense (those count as turnovers) as well as unforced errors such as stepping out of bounds on hustle plays.
“But we can do better. A couple times we got sped up. So we will do much better. We will continue to do much better. On Saturday, just the nature of this league, we are facing one of the best turnover-forcing teams in the country. We have to do better, and we will.”
One problem is that the Cougars don’t have an experienced point guard, which seems to be paramount in the Big 12. Most teams have one, if not several.
Pope planned to have sophomore Dallin Hall and Florida/Samford transfer Ques Glover handle the ballhandling duties in 2023-24, but Glover left during the summer for Kansas State and another possible option, UC Irvine transfer Dawson Baker, has played sparingly due to a foot injury and is most likely out for the remainder of the season.
Pope said on his coaches show Wednesday night that Baker will probably need surgery on his foot, which hasn’t gotten better since surgery last summer. The coach said a definite decision should be made within 24 hours.
As for Hall, he committed two turnovers against Cincinnati and four against Baylor. Pope used the 6-foot-7 Jaxson Robinson at the point a bit against the Bears, having hinted several times during the summer that that was a possibility as well.
“I thought he was really good for being thrown in the fire after just one day of practice. He got some reps at the one earlier in the season. But I thought he responded well in a great environment on the road,” Pope said. “He’s got the capability of really making a huge impact at the point as well as the two and the three.”
Hall leads the team in minutes (25.5) and turnovers (1.8) per game, while chipping in 9.4 points and 63 assists. Pope said the Fremont High product is in a mild shooting slump but will continue to fire away because “shooters shoot, right?”
“We are trying to focus on just our decision-making under duress, both offensively and defensively,” Pope said. “And that is probably where (Hall) is going to spend most of his time.”
Obviously, that decision-making is impacted by the competition, and BYU is facing length and athleticism like it has never faced before, with the possible exception of those two or three games a year against Gonzaga.
“Yeah, it is a little bit new,” Pope said. “But it is not something we haven’t seen. It is just the relentless nature of it. And we kind of knew that going in. And so, it is just a different beast for us in the sense that we have to do everything we can to make sure we are putting our best possible product on the floor every single night. There is no place to get discouraged or lose confidence or lose focus or feel sorry for yourselves or anything like that.”
