Watching the game yesterday once again showed me why I think Kevin Young will go down as one of the great coaches in BYU basketball history. His substitution patterns demonstrate that he sees the entire game and what adjustments need to be made. In the last five minutes he was playing offense/defense by who he had on the floor.

It was obvious that if Keita was in the game when BYU had the ball in the last four minutes, they would attempt to foul him if he touched the ball. Fouling Traore just results in made FTs. But on defense Keita is such a force. The same with Stewart. With VCU having to jack up threes it is better to have someone with Stewart’s quickness helping to defend.

Early in the game Mag took Shulga out of his comfort zone. He was not getting open looks. In the end he made 4 threes, and he is a deadly shooter if given clean looks. Jackson came off the bench and made 5-10 from the arc and that was significantly above his season average of 31%. That happens when a player gets in the zone.

I believe that Kevin Young is building a program that will compete for the Big 12 crown year in and year out. I also believe he will make some deeper runs in the tournament. He has adapted to the college game over the course of the season and understands when to call the time outs and even more importantly, how the game is officiated differently than the NBA.
The fact that VCU could make 15 threes and we could still win comfortably is a testament to Young’s coaching.