I was surprised at how resilient Riverside was to our runs, always with an answer that often including fine 3 point shooting in our gym! When our 3 point shooting was off, the contrast with their shooting was painful.

As a plus, each BYU player came away with new knowledge of personal things to work on and examples of where team communication failed (crowd noise was great for motivation, but caused some players to not hear each other or the coaches — a fun problem that they have to figure out, that they cannot duplicate in empty gym).

I'm afraid ugly losses are also ahead, of both kinds (we almost won, or we were totally embarrassed by our youth and team inexperience). I don't like either kind, but it's a 'cost of doing business' when we bring in young exceptional talent that also fires up our expectations beyond reason, etc.

Hoosiers is my favorite sports movie, for several reasons.

One is that it shows that if you can string together wins at the end of the season, through team play, the early ugly losses or ugly wins don't matter.

In fact, a great coach will use his and his players distaste at LOSING to give them greater motivation to figure out roles and how to play together — assuming the coach can figure out how to mold them before the season ends. As good as last year's team was, so fun to watch, they got surprised by DQ.

BYU football's losing streak last year, and not going to a bowl, became a powerful motivator for this years surprising team, down to the last man. The whole team worked extra hard in the off season.

With our one-and-done stars in basketball, we'll have them for as long as they decide to stay, so anger at ugly losses won't carry forward for all players into next season. Coach and players have pressure to figure it out, and correct biggest deficiencies, this year.

With 5 of the top 10 teams in the NCAA preseason in the BIG 12 this year, it's not going to be a forgiving schedule.

The Hoosiers team had weak teams in the early going, to learn from and start that winning streak.

We wanted to join this horrific league, we got what we wanted. Ugly wins and ugly losses are part of the price of admission. We're playing with the Big Boys now. Growing pains, around the corner, probably more than with last year's team (with more new guys to teach and integrate into a new system this year).

We need to temper our expectations with reality of facing so many Big Boys in league play. This isn't golf.

In the future, some of our top recruits may be put off by ugly wins or ugly losses, but others will be attracted by seeing how hard the guys battle and for the occasional slices of terrific play while taking our beatings.

I believe this coaching staff knows how to explain ugly-we're-learning play to top recruits, not to twist their arms, but to say something like 'If you hope to play in the NBA, buckle up. The NBA is tougher than the BIG 12. We can help you toughen up for NBA demands, by making you stretch by playing against the best league where you get fully tested at home or away, etc. No nights off. It will be hard. It needs to be hard.'

We've got great talent, but that isn't enough. Cohesion takes time. Job #1 is to do more work on foul shots no matter what else you work on. NBA scouts mark foul shooting. Obviously, some close games depend on it.

Post game, I thought coach Young looked surprised at the team's poor foul shooting and several other glaring deficiencies. When he earlier stated that the big difference between NBA and college coaching is that NBA schedules allow for scant practice time, he now has a clear idea of specific holes his college team needs to fill, if they are to become competitive.

That kind of self-knowledge is valuable.

Ugly can be good, as a teacher. I doubt that any player or coach on this team rested easy after the game.

Riverside gave us a useful challenge, as they did to Oregon. Before the game, my wife and I were talking about Riverside as a cupcake. Wrong. Their experience showed what we lack. Thank heaven for points in the paint and a simply amazing point guard with skills and team-first unselfishness.