Writers note: it took a day for me to gather my thoughts to write this because the effort that BYU provided was just so painful to watch.

BYU lost their fourth game in five tries in their West Coast Conference opener against Loyola Marymount 87-76 on Saturday afternoon.

BYU wasn’t in the game from the beginning and the score wasn’t indicative of how much Loyola Marymount just dominated.

There was just no flow for the Cougars the whole game.  There was far too much one-on-one play from beginning to end.  BYU has some great individual players, but when you don’t get your teammates involved you are never going to beat good teams.  Basketball is a team game and even the best scorers can’t do it on their own.

Tyler Haws and Matt Carlino forced the ball far too much and had little success.  They shot a combined 8-for-28 from the field and Haws had five turnovers.

Kyle Collinsworth tried to force the action far too often as well, but at least he made some shots.  Collinsworth shot 7-for-13 from the floor, but also had five turnovers.  He finished the game with 18 points and eight rebounds.

BYU had a distinct advantage in the post but Eric Mika attempted just eight shots from the floor.  Mika still managed to put up 17 points and seven rebounds.  The Cougars got a really nice effort from Frank Bartley off the bench with six points, seven rebounds and four assists in 18 minutes.

The Cougars really struggled with their rotations in the zone defense that they played for far too much of the game and Evan Payne made them pay. Payne made 5-of-9 shots from 3-point range and finished the game with 27 points.

For BYU to have any shot at post season this year they need to start playing like a team and not just a bunch of individuals.

They have far too much talent not to by a tournament team, but the way they have been playing as of late ( especially against Utah and LMU) they haven’t shown it at all!