Provo • The BYU men’s basketball team experienced practically everything an intrasquad exhibition game has to offer.
Atiki Ally Atiki committed seven fouls and also made a 3-pointer. Rudi Williams was given four technical fouls and shot 50% from the field. There were step-back 3s and a missed dunk.
The Cougars played their annual blue-white game Wednesday night at the Marriott Center. The White team won, 78-65.
But the score didn’t matter so much as what can be gleaned from the first public showing of the 2022-23 Cougars, who feature a slew of new faces due to incoming freshmen and transfers.
Here are five observations from the blue-white game.
1. Gideon George might be BYU’s best player
George scored 18 points and was a game-best plus-20 on the court. He played on the White team along with Noah Waterman, Rudi Williams, Jared McCregor, Foussini Traeore, Trey Stewart and Tanner Hayhurst.
His energy on both sides of the court jumped out the most. He pulled down eight rebounds, three of which came on the offensive end.
George had the highlight of the evening when he chased down Spence Johnson and blocked his layup, and followed it up immediately with another block on Dallin Hall.
“That was incredible,” Atiki said of George’s double block. “Spencer should’ve dunked that, actually.”
George is a senior this season, and returned to the team after testing the waters with the NBA draft. Because he’s one of the players with the most experience, the Cougars will look to him to be a leader both on and off the court.
2. Rudi Williams impressed in his BYU debut
Williams, fair or not, has been anointed as the guy with the unenviable task of replacing Alex Barcello. He’s a confident point guard who can score in multiple ways, and he showed that Wednesday.
Williams led all scorers with 19 points and shot 7 of 14 while doing so. He added four assists and two steals, and showed off a bit with two consecutive step-back 3-pointers.
Williams, who transferred to BYU for this final year of college eligibility, struggled early but got himself into a groove — a good sign of things to come for the lead guard. He also showed that he can get the room and finish smoothly.
The Cougars will need consistent performances from him if they want to win at a high level this season.
3. Jaxson Robinson is not afraid to shoot
Robinson is one of BYU’s transfers. He took 19 shots in the exhibition game and made seven of them, scoring 16 points in the process. He led the Blue team in scoring, and led everyone in shot attempts.
Nineteen shots is ... a lot. It’s definitely far too many for a game that matters. But coach Mark Pope was nothing but complimentary toward Robinson after the game.
“I think he’s got a huge upside to him,” Pope said. “I’m really excited about what he’s trying to grow into. I think he’s got a really, really high ceiling.”
Pope did acknowledge, however, that there will likely not be a player on BYU that shoots 20 shots per game this season. He also said the team is still learning “who we are.”
But Robinson being totally unafraid to take shots — good ones or bad — is a positive for BYU. Shooting was a bugaboo for the Cougars last year, so having someone who has the confidence to take shots may galvanize others on the team to let it fly.
Speaking of shooting ...
4. The Cougars were atrocious from 3
BYU shot just 14 of 53 from the 3-point line. For a team that will hang its hat on 3-point shooting this season, that’s not good.
Five players who attempted multiple 3s missed them all, most notable among them being Richie Saunders. Waterman shot 2 of 5 and Dallin Hall shot 2 of 4 from long range.
Pope said he was not at all concerned about the poor shooting from this squad.
“It’s a good shooting group with a long track record of shooting the ball well,” Pope said. “Our shot selection will continue to improve a little bit. We need to earn ourselves better shots — something we’ve been focused on the last couple of days and will be a big push for us in the next 10 days. But these guys can really shoot it and I’m excited about their potential there.”
5. BYU will play fast on both ends
The Cougars full-court pressed a ton in this game, and created some bad passes and turnovers as a result. On the offensive end, they passed the ball up the floor a lot in order to get in semi-transition.
Pope is calling the team’s offensive pace its “thrust,” which he said was up and down.
“Our thrust is kind of our goal to get the ball across halfcourt,” Pope said, later noting that fatigue may have played a factor. “We have a specific time we’re shooting for after a make, after a miss and after a turnover. I guess we were slow on all three of those areas today, so it wasn’t great.”
BYU doesn’t have much size, but it has multiple players who can bring the ball up the court and catch-and-drive. Williams, Hall, Robinson, Tanner Toolson and Trey Stewart all had opportunities to initiate offense.
