Rough Start

Well if you missed the game let me wrap it up for you quickly.

We are young, and we showed it tonight. We were intimated to open our season in the house of the defending western conference champions. I will make no excuses, we got it handed to us tonight. Offensively we played bad. We need more "easy" baskets, ie- fast break, points in the paint, free throws, etc. We rely too much on the outside. Defensively wasn't bad, but not great either. The Lakers shot well (70% from 3-point, compared to our 41%).

Personal thoughts.
B-Roy cannot be our point guard, really he is comparable to Isaac. He could score from about anywhere on the floor at anytime, but he passes the ball way too much. Still he is the man and my favorite player, no bias on this blog.
Rudy played well minus a few dumb turnovers.
G.O. just did not look ready. I didn't expect him to do too much offensively, so not shocker there.
Lamarcus you need to man up, I am a big fan of yours, but come on, get tough and get in the paint. I want you to be Rasheed but you just aren't.
Channing Fry, why, why, why, and did you really pull up from 3 point land? Please stop.
We are so athletic, we need to run.
We missed Martell tonight.
Travis you force it too much.
Coach Nate be patient with these young guys.
K.P don't worry, yes you made the right decisions with these guys so far. Although we will need to ship a few out before the trade deadline, including Raef and his 12-13 mil.
This is only one game.

Friday on ESPN we have the spurs. The only team that has worse fans than LA (yes Bjork and Farnsworth, thats you). Let us come back against the Alamo Friday with some Spanish fire!

Don't give up yet Cougs...

Well Triz did a pretty good job of wrapping up the TCU/BYU game last night on Cougar Crazies. After a disappointing night I have decided to look for optimism.

1. The Cougs can still win the MWC. It is going to take some help but possible. Which continues to prove to be better than a number of BCS conferences including the Pac-10.

This is how, November 6th the Horned Frogs travel Salt Lake. This will likely be one of those few nights Cougar fans will cheer for the dreaded Utes. Utah obviously gets calls at home as we saw against Oregon State, and there kicker could make the difference. Then November 22nd the Cougs drive north to play the Utes in the big game. I objectively think the Cougs will beat Utah. Even after last nights ugly, slow looking, predictable, beat down. The Horned Frogs will also need to be upset by another in conference school, Air Force probably has the best chance, the same day BYU/Utah play.

The bad news, looks like they will be headed to Vegas for the 39th straight year to play UCLA/Oregon for the 24th straight year.

2. The Beavs can win the Pac-10. Who would have thought after a season opening loss to Stanford the Beavs could still win the conference. It was too bad we didn't start playing until the 4th quarter that game and still had a chance to win.

Anyway, here is how the Beavs can pull it off...
- Stanford still has to play Cal, Oregon, and USC. They will loose two of those games.
- USC still has to play Arizona (Who usually plays well at home vs the Trojans), Cal, and of course the season ender at UCLA (anyone remember what happen last time 2006 USC went to UCLA).
- Oregon is bad.
- ASU was probably the most overrated team in the nation going into this season.
- Everything from Washington is horrible.
- Arizona could throw some pac-10 teams off there horse.
- And of course, the Beavs will win out.

Here is how the Pac-10 will finish (in conference records)...
1. Beavers 8-1 (I hope this post doesn't curse them)
2. Trojans 7-2 (losses to OSU and Cal/UCLA/Zona)
3. Bears 7-2 (losses to OSU and USC/Stan/Zona)
4. Cardinal 6-3 (losses to ASU, OSU, and USC/Oregon/Cal)
5. Wildcats 5-4 (losses to Stan, OSU, USC, and Cal)
6. Ducks 4-5 (wins against Wash, Wash St, UCLA, & ASU although I will not be surprised if they lose out and fire Bilotti)
7. Devils 4-5 (wins against Stan, Wash, Wash St, and UCLA)
8. Huskies 2-7 (wins against UCLA and Wash St, another coaching change coming)
9. Bruins 1-8 (a lonely win against Wash St, it never pays to hire a cheater)
10. Cougars 0-9 (I think we all see this coming, you never know what can happen at the apple cup though)

And my last point...

3. I am so pumped for October 28 our season opener against the Lakers! Go Blazers

How can you not be excited?

Yes. I know it was one (the first) pre-season game. But GO scored 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Did I mention he did that in a casual 20 minutes?

Final score 110-81 Portland over Sacramento. I copied ESPN's article (summarized) below. B-Roy's knee looks fine. He also added 14 points and 7 assists in very limited playing time.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=281007022

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Greg Oden announced his delayed arrival to the NBA with a dunk two minutes into the preseason.

Oden debuted to a standing ovation, as did the rest of the young Portland Trail Blazers, in a 110-81 exhibition victory over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. Oden finished with 13 points in just under 20 minutes." The big fella is a beast, man," teammate Brandon Roy said.

Oden won the opening jump over Sacramento's Mikki Moore. His dunk, two minutes into the game, was Portland's first basket. Oden wowed the near-sellout crowd with another couple of dunks in the second quarter. One young fan held a sign that read: "Welcome to the show No. 52."

"This team tonight was already showing him some respect," Blazers coach Nate McMillan said about the 7-foot rookie, "sending double-teams and trying to front him.

Roy, who had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in August, played a little more than 23 minutes and had 14 points and seven assists for the Blazers. Martell Webster led Portland with 15 points. Besides Oden, Blazers fans also got their first look at Spanish guard Rudy Fernandez, who played the past seven seasons for DKV Joventut Badelona of the Spanish ACB League. Fernandez, who played on the Spanish Olympic team that lost to the United States in the gold medal game in Beijing, was flashy offensively and effective defensively in his first NBA game. "I thought Rudy played great," Roy said. "People think he's a scorer, but tonight he showed he can pass." Fernandez made three particular passes to Webster late in the game that resulted in dunks, and brought cheers of "Rudy!" from the crowd."I'm not surprised at what Rudy did," McMillan said. "I've said all along his feel for the game is the best part of his game. He makes the right pass at the right time. I think that's the strength of his game."

ps- Does anyone else think the new Oklahoma City Thunder picked a lame mascot?

RIP CITY IS BACK. Watch out Utah and Kobe.

Mid-Season Rankings and Conferences

After regularly reviewing the mid-season polls, I have come to the conclusion, that they just don't mean much to me. Sure it means something to the BCS voters at the end of the year. But I feel I know where teams sit, regardless of what the polls say. How can you even keep track anymore due to the plethora of polls that are out there. Instead of making my own poll lets review the conferences.

Before I go there I just wanted to touch on conferences. Below I have ranked them and rationalized some of my decisions, others are just there.

Evan's Conference Rankings:

1. Big 12 (4 teams in the top 7, I don't think anyone can argue with that)

2. MWC (Obviously BYU & Utah and TCU who will likely get back in the top 25 soon. They have an outstanding record against the Pac-10 (6-1) and are looking good. Although let us not forget about that crap call the Beavs got on the 2 point conversion.

3. SEC (As much as it pains me, they are deep and we need each team to have 2 losses to help BYU's chances)

4. tie, BIG EAST/PAC-10 (WV already lost to Colorado & East Carolina. Oregon sucking this year is not helping the pac out any. Together they account for 43 losses, ouch)

6. BIG 10 (Similar to the WAC, without Penn St I wouldn't have even put them on the list. Ohio State I strongly dislike)

7. ACC (stick to bball)

8. WAC (horrible this year, my Rexburg Idaho flag football team could compete with everyone but the Bronco's)

Now where I am really wanting to go with this post, is to create my own Conference called, the BIG EC (Evan Carlile). Below are the teams in my conference and where they would be currently ranked.

1. Missouri Tigers. Offense is the best in the nation. averaging 53.4 points/game. There defense still has question marks, but with that offense that may be okay. Tigers play at Texas on the 18th.

2. Brigham Young Cougars. In my opinion, the complete team. Excel on both sides of the ball and special teams. Outscoring there last three opponents 137-14.

3.-10. in this order would be of course the Beavs, Boise State, USC, Oregon, Florida, Washington, Ohio State, and Utah

Some of you may be wondering about some of those teams, opposition in all things. It would just really help me get up for each game playing my dreaded teams every week.

Old Hatred Renewed...

Former Utes:
I know my grandpa was Ute, I know President Monson and Hinckley were Utes, but times have changed. Utah has evolved into that school that is known as: cheap shot artists, we are not BYU and never will be, too tight of clothes wearing, both fans, coaches, and players are all annoying, etc etc.

Excuses:
Granted I am not a big excuse guy, and we should have won that game 3-4 different times. But when you are a school like Oregon State and you don't have enough scholarships to give out it hurts in the skill positions. The place where that showed and we were most exposed last night, special teams! Kick off gave up an 80 yard return, an average of 38 yards/punt, do we even need to talk about the kicker?

My quick recap:
Fairly predictable game. We couldn't get the run game going up the middle. Play calling I was just not agreeing with on either side of the ball. Get the ball outside to the edges, bring more blitz packages, and we couldn't contain Utah running outside around the corners. Quiz still had over 100 yards rushing and 82 receiving. Moevao's height disadvantage was exposed, 4-5 batted down passes. He still played pretty well though 313 yards, 2 TD's, and 0 INT's. Brian Johnson is not good, our pass rush struggled, especially in the 4th quarter. Too much beer after last week's stunner.

Final Point:
The ref's lost the game for us. If you watched it you exactly what I am talking about. The Utah 2 point conversion. The pass was about 5 yards behind the intended receiver (uncatchable) plus the receiver ran into the LB who was covering, not the other way around. A total bail out call, even the House and Senate would have denied that Bail Out plan! Richard Chapman would not have thrown his yellow hanky, and is there a better ref out there? NO!

One more thing:
Did Utah really celebrate like they just beat the #1 ranked team in the nation? I love the Beavs, but we were 2-2 at the time, including a loss at Stanford. They were ranked 15 in the nation. You were supposed to win, in fact you were supposed to win by at least 12 points.

Lastly:
I am angry. My BYU at Utah prediction is BYU 52 - Utah 13. Last night they showed they don't have a change, even if it is at Rice-Eccles. Go Cougs.