BYU Basketball: BYU Cougars 2015-16 Season Preview
BYU Cougars
2014-2015 Record: 25-10 (13-5, WCC)
NCAA Tournament – Lost to Ole Miss 94-90 in the First Four
Trying to replace the All-Time leading scorer of any hoop program is a difficult task. That is the issue Brigham Young Cougars head coach Dave Rose is going to be faced with in 2015-16 with his club.
Losing 6-foot-5 shooting guard Tyler Haws is going to be a huge blow to BYU’s production. The all-time scorer in school history averaged 19.6 points per contest and scored 2,720 points in his career.
Along with having to replace the 22.2 ppg Haws brought to the fold, Coach Rose also needs to see who on the roster can make up for the production that guards Skylar Halford and Anson Winder brought to the table.
In all, BYU is going to have to replace 43.7 points per game from last season, and have very little experience to try to replace it with.
BYU is going to at least have Kyle Collinsworth as their leader this season. Collinsworth was able to have a stellar 2014-15 campaign after blowing out his knee in 2013-14.
Even with having an all-around player like Collinsworth to be the main gun, finding a supporting cast to go along with him is going to be the task in the end.
Newcomers
G – Cooper Ainge (Two-Year LDS Church Mission/Wellesley,MA)
G – Jordan Chatman (Redshirt 2014-15/Vancouver,WA)
F – Kyle Davis (Transfer From Utah State/Draper,UT)
F – Jakob Hartsock (Bartlesville/Bartlesville, OK)
F – Braiden Shaw (Eagle/Eagle,ID)
G – Zac Seljaas (Bountiful/Bountiful,UT)
G – Nick Emery (Lone Peak/Alpine, UT)
Key Non-Conference Games
Nov. 28 vs. Belmont – Belmont is an NCAA Tournament tested opponent that has made it to “The Big Dance” seven of the last 10 seasons.
The Bruins are projected to be a contender for the Ohio Valley Conference title this season since they return four starters and their top three scorers from last season.
Forward Evan Bradds is going to be a handful for BYU down low. Bradds led the country in field goal percentage at 68.8% and averaged 14.2 points per game.
Dec. 9th vs Utah State – Intrastate rivalries are always fun and this one should be no exception. The Utah State Aggies are projected to be a team that gets a postseason bid to the NIT at minimum and return five starters from last year.
David Collette and Jalen Moore are quite the one-two punch for the Aggies. Moore averages 15.2 points and 6.7 rebounds which both led the team last year and Collette shot 59.1% while averaging 12.8 points per contest.
That is not even accounting for guard Chris Smith who is a marksman that strokes the trey at a 47.4% clip.
This game will be a real test for the Cougars when they link up in Provo. BYU will have enough games under their belt to have an understanding of their team chemistry and flow by the time this game comes around.
Should be a highly competitive contest.
Key Players
Kyle Collinsworth – It was great to see Kyle Collinsworth bounce back from injury last season.
The 6-foot-6 shooting guard, or all-purpose guard if you really pay attention to his game, can do a little bit of everything on the basketball court.
Collinsworth logged six triple-doubles last year for the Cougars and averaged 13.8 points, 8.7 boards, and 6.0 rebounds per contest which led the squad in all three categories.
He is easily the most important player and is highly significant to the success of the BYU Cougars this season.
Dave Rose is simply going to have to put the right mix of players around Collinsworth so that he can show off his entire repertoire.
Chase Fischer- Chase Fisher will look to improve on a solid 2014-15 campaign.
The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 13.2 points per contest and along with Kyle Collinsworth will represent the senior leadership for this Cougars team.
Fischer returns as the Cougars best three-point threat after knocking down 41.5% of his attempts from beyond the arc.
He is going to need to bring that steady deep ball stroke yet again in order for the Cougars to succeed this season and should be counted on for more offensive production.
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Season Outlook
If it wasn’t for the fact that Dave Rose was going to have to fill so many holes with so much youth you could look at BYU as a potential NCAA Tournament squad since they still have enough talent to be an NIT team.
This season is going to hinge a lot on Kyle Collinsworth and Chase Fischer building on their success and another player stepping up and being that third player with production.
This team has so much youth and that is what is going to make it hard for them in the long run.
They should still be a Top Five team in the WCC, but they may end up being the No. 5 team. Pepperdine is supposed to be improved, Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga are going to do their usual damage, and it is not like Santa Clara or USF couldn’t pull off a surprise in conference.
The one thing we do know is that the BYU Cougars are going to put up points. They averaged 83.7 points per contest last season which was tops in the conference.
You have to believe that the pace of play is not going to stop regardless of all the offense they lost during the offseason.
BYU will be competitive, but they are going to be a bit more vulnerable on conference play.