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PROVO — Five years of playing at a perceived lower level of competition, the BYU basketball team has not won anything of significant consequence, meaning either a regular-season or conference tournament championship.

And it probably won’t happen either in BYU’s sixth season in the West Coast Conference. As it stands, nationally ranked Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s appear to be better than the Cougars.

In switching from the traditionally higher rated Mountain West to the WCC, BYU was expected to enjoy an easier path to success. But the Cougars have been saddled with lower seeds in the NCAA tournament than what they got in the Mountain West.

With several highly touted high school players joining the program after returning from LDS missions the last two years, this season was supposed to be different. Instead, it looks like BYU is on track to play at best second-fiddle to Gonzaga and scramble for an NCAA tournament berth.

Either with the fan base or in the media, some are grumbling about Dave Rose’s ability to coach the team well enough. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Gordon Monson published a column essentially saying BYU has hit a wall under Rose, who has averaged 26 wins a season in his first 11 years.

The system works to a point, Monson said, adding: “Rose runs his team the way he always has – emphasizing free-flowing offense and not much else. The team periodically works on defense. It just doesn’t play it. Rose’s practices are loose and his players in games often turbo-jack the notion of free flowing into . . . undisciplined. They take bad shots and play soft at the other end. Sometimes, it seems as though the players run the asylum.”

Although Rose stays away from reading or listening to media reports, those associated with the program were upset at the column. They viewed it as a cheap shot at an accomplished coach.

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To a point they are right. Rose’s work ethic and diligence in trying to improve his team are above reproach.

At times, especially this season, it does seem some players are too busy hunting shots without making a commitment to defense. Losing to Utah Valley in the fashion BYU did, allowing the Wolverines to score 114 points in the Marriott Center, is absolutely unacceptable.

“Everybody has an opinion,’ said Rose’s predecessor, Steve Cleveland. “There’s not much we can do about it as players and coaches. . . . You’ve got to have thick skin and move on.”

Cleveland, who brought Rose to BYU as an assistant coach when he took over the program in 1997, accepts public critiques as part of the job. In some respects, he said, that criticism sometimes is correct and can actually make a coach better.

However, he took exception to the perception that practices are loose, which obviously carries a negative connotation. Returning last summer from a three-year stint as an LDS mission president, Cleveland has attended at least 15 practices this season and attests to the staff’s efforts. He has questioned the team’s shot selection at times but believes it has improved over the last six weeks.

“The idea that there’s a loose ship or that there’s a circumstance where practice is unorganized or there just isn’t an attention to detail, that is absolutely not true,” Cleveland said. “You don’t do what this group has done over the past 11 or 12 years without having an attention to detail or a plan.”

In reality, expectations for BYU this season were unreasonable considering the group’s inexperience. The starting lineup is comprised of two freshmen, two sophomores and one senior who transferred into the program for his last season.

And overtaking Gonzaga as the WCC’s premier program isn’t likely. Coach Mark Few has guided the Bulldogs to 15 of the last 17 conference championships and six appearances in the Sweet 16.

BYU has reached the Sweet 16 twice since 1981, including once under Rose in 2011. His teams won four Mountain West championships and have played in the NCAA tournament eight times.

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