Cougars are doing historic things, but there are still things to iron out

The five-game win streak Kevin Young has BYU riding as it heads into Saturday’s home game with West Virginia is built on amazing offensive efficiency.

It’s elite. It’s consistent. And if the bombs drop, it’s deadly.

But Young told folks after his team defeated Arizona State on Wednesday that the Cougars have a lot of work to do and improvement is the goal.

His team can play better defense. It allowed a combined 176 points in games against Arizona and Arizona State. Even in wins, he needs stops.

And his team needs to do far better at the free-throw line. Missing the front end of one-and-ones and splitting two-shot trips to the line will ultimately kill this No. 25-ranked BYU team.

I’d predict one of the biggest factors in an early exit from the Big 12 tournament and NCAAs would be missing free throws.

The 6 for 15 from the line in the ASU win was no bueno.

Payson High or the Timpview 5th ward could do better than that.

Before the ASU game, however, BYU appeared to have an uptick in free-throw accuracy. The Cougars went 10 of 14 at Arizona, 9 for 12 against Kansas, 20 for 26 in beating K-State, 13 of 16 at West Virginia and 8 of 11 in a loss at Cincy.

Young can live with that.

But burying gimmes at crunch time is absolutely needed in basketball, as Richie Saunders proved in the win at No. 19 Arizona with three seconds left.

Now, back to the magic dust that BYU is riding on not named Saunders.

The standout stat for the Cougars as they fight for a No. 4 seed in Kansas City is offensive efficiency.

In college basketball analytics, offensive efficiency is a metric that measures how effectively a team scores points per possession. It’s a cornerstone of modern basketball analysis because it accounts for pace of play and provides a standardized way to compare teams regardless of how many possessions they have in a game.

Essentially, it tells you how many points a team would score if given 100 possessions, making it a powerful tool for evaluating offensive performance.

The basic formula for offensive efficiency is points scored divided by possessions, then times that by 100.The factors that impact offensive efficiency include shooting accuracy, turnover rate, offensive rebounding, free-throw opportunities and shot selection — layups, dunks and open 3s.

Before the ASU game BYU’s adjusted offensive efficiency rating was 123.1, which is better than a year ago at 119.8 — and the best in the KenPom ranking era that began in 1997. The most recent rankings has BYU at No. 14 in this category at 118.8. Duke is No. 1 at 128.8.

The Cougars are excelling because of open 3a and money-ball shots at the rim as produced by Saunders, Keba Keita and Fouss Traore. Keita has been averaging close to 85% from the field in the past few games.

When Saunders, Dallin Hall, Mawot Mag and Trevin Knell are knocking down 3a and the team is totaling more than 10, it is a spray of WD-40 on Young’s offensive cogs.

Saunders is No. 2 in the Big 12 in points per game and field goal percentage and ranks No. 1 in 3-point field goals per game. He is No. 2 in 3-point field goals made per game.

OptaStats reports in each of the last three games BYU has scored at least 90 points, shot at least 50% from the field, made at least a dozen 3s and had fewer than a dozen turnovers. “No other Division I team this century has done that three games in a row.”

And that’s in the Big 12 against two nationally ranked teams, Kansas and Arizona.

“When we’re not turning the ball over and we’re rebounding, we’re one of the best offensive teams in the country,” said Young on Monday.

On Saturday, the Cougars could make the threshold of 20 wins, a figure I believed to be a very successful season in the post-Mark Pope era.

“I’ve told these guys from the start that we’re a good team and we should expect to compete with anyone. They’re starting to see it now,” said Young.