BYU's task is to stop Luke

We’re minutes before tipoff and I’ve been going through my recorder from Monday’s practice, and pretty much everything I’m hearing is BYU’s main task tonight against the Utes is to stop 7-foot-2 center Luke Nevill. Not only Nevill’s scoring, but the Cougars need to find a way to be effective in the post offensively with Nevill in the paint, and to not get dominated on the boards. BYU coach Dave Rose said Nevill presents a lot of matchup problems for the Cougars not only by his offensive skills, but also in the way he gives the Utes good offensive spacing. The Cougars have been getting good play of late, especially defensively, from all three centers, so they basically have 15 fouls to use on Nevill. However, Rose doesn’t want that to be BYU’s strategy. “We need to find a way to guard him without fouling him,” Rose said. Nevill shoots nearly 78 percent from the free throw line. Rose cautioned, however, that if the Cougars pay too much attention to the Utah big guy, his supporting cast is very capable of burning BYU. Both teams prefer the uptempo style so we could be in for a shoot-out, which means this game might just come down to which team is hot and which one is not.