Will BYU play better basketball against TCU than it did vs. Houston?

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BYU Cougars center Fousseyni Traore (45) huddles with his teammates during an NCAA men’s basketball game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders held at the Marriott Center in Provo on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News

Whether it be 3-pointers, point-blank attempts near the rim, floaters from the key or even free throws, there has been an emphasis at BYU’s Marriott Center Annex the past few days on simply making shots.

The Cougars’ practices have been filled with that seemingly simple drill, after a failure to make shots from all over the court — including a woeful 12 of 21 effort from the charity stripe — led to BYU losing 72-67 to visiting Texas Tech on Tuesday.

Sure, there were other reasons why BYU dropped to 1-2 in Big 12 play at the hands of the Red Raiders, most notably poor defensive execution down the stretch, but shooting so poorly on their home floor was inexcusable, coach Kevin Young said after the game and again Thursday night during his coach’s show.

BYU was 5 of 23 (21.7%) from 3-point range, its worst performance from beyond the arc this season.

BYU-TCU basketball preview

Young said his confidence level that the Cougars can recover from such a poor shooting night is “extremely high” as BYU (10-4, 1-2) turns its attention to Saturday’s road game at TCU (noon MST, ESPN2).

The Frogs (8-6, 1-2) are also coming off a disappointing offensive game, a 65-46 loss at No. 12 Houston two nights after the red-wearing Cougars blasted BYU 86-55 at Fertitta Center.

“We got a team full of really good shooters. I think we started out 1 of 10 from 3 (vs. Texas Tech),” Young said. “I thought the first half we got wide open looks. They just didn’t go in. … Especially at home, to start 1 for 10 from 3, that was really disappointing. I thought we could have opened it up a lot more in the first half. But more than the 3-point shooting was the free-throw shooting. You gotta be able to knock free throws down in close games.”

BYU is shooting 35.4%…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/byu-play-better-basketball-against-210019527.html

Author : Deseret News

Publish date : 2025-01-10 21:00:00

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