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What should BYU fans expect from the next five years of Dave Rose?

BYU announced Monday that Head Basketball Coach Dave Rose has signed a new five-year basketball contract. Rose’s old contract would have expired after the end of next season and it seems BYU decided to extend him now rather than let him enter the offseason with only one year left under contract.

As a side note, this is similar to the situation in which Bronco Mendenhall will find himself at the conclusion of the 2015 football season.

“I’m excited about the future of BYU basketball,” Rose said. “Tom Holmoe, Brian Santiago and the University administration have provided great support and I look forward to the things we can accomplish together over the next several years. We have great student-athletes and coaches at BYU who are committed to the success of our program.”

Dave Rose has good reasons to be excited about the future of BYU hoops. The five-year deal means Dave Rose’s new contract will last through the eligibility of Nick Emery, TJ Haws, Jordan Chatman, Zac Seljaas, Eric Mika, and Peyton Dastrup.

Buckle up.

With a new long-term contract and with these highly-rated recruits coming home from their missions, what should BYU fans expect for the next five years?

Before you say “BYU’s first Final Four appearance,” yes, that would be amazing, but if you’re expecting BYU to land in the Final Four once in the next five years the odds say you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Are you going to call the next five years a failure if BYU is unable to reach a Final Four? Seems a little steep.

The Cougars will certainly be fighting to win every game and making tournament runs. However, for baseline expectations, a more reasonable goal for the last four seasons of this decade is for BYU to win a West Coast Conference championship.

BYU will have been playing basketball for 100 years by the end of the decade. Here’s a list of the number of regular season conference championships they’ve won by decade:

1920s: 2
1930s: 3
1940s: 1
1950s: 3
1960s: 3
1970s: 3
1980s: 3
1990s: 3
2000s: 5
2010s: 1

BYU has hit a bit of a dry spell as far as conference championships go, but moving to the WCC saddled the Cougars with the need to dethrone Gonzaga for a title.

Outside of Arizona and UCLA, who in the West has the kind of basketball pedigree that Gonzaga has had the last 15 years or so? How hard do you think it is to beat UCLA or Arizona to win a basketball championship? You can have a pretty good (even exceptional) year and still not outplay those Western giants for a conference championship.

Some BYU fans may still hang onto the idea that top to bottom the Mountain West was so much more difficult, despite what current computer ratings say. The truth is that because of Gonzaga alone, the path to win a conference championship has gotten much harder for BYU.

Gonzaga will likely continue to be a major hurdle to get over, but BYU’s teams have won championships for almost a century and with this new deal, a solid goal would be to win one or two more before this decade runs out.

Another Sweet Sixteen appearance or more would certainly be welcomed, but as far as what should be expected? Let’s worry about getting another conference banner, first.

11 Comments

  1. Austin

    February 10, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    The guys from Lone Peak won a National Championship in high school. A Final Four my be a “stretch goal,” but it is not an unreasonable expectation.

  2. Walt Hanssen

    February 10, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    Coach Rose’s biggest problem and weakness is that he hasn’t been able to recruit enough good to great big men (centers, power and small forwards) since 2005 when he took over. I could make a long list of point & shooting guards and swing men (shooting guard to small forward) but the list of the big men is small (chronologically from the latest):

    1. Mika 6’10”
    2. Davies 6’9″
    3. Hartsock 6’8″
    4. Chris Collinsworth 6’10” (but never played due to injuries)
    5. Plaisted 6’11”

    My fellow Cougar fans, that’s it and only during a few years did we have more than one playing together and that was Davies & Hartsock which is coincidentally our best years. Have I missed anyone who has been 6’8″ are taller…maybe Stephen Rogers?

    To have so many great guards and swing men without an adequate front court has been a travesty and we certainly can’t expect Rose’s teams to be any better during the next 5 years unless this problem is fixed…no matter how many players we get from LP…and Mika by himself isn’t nearly enough.

    • Spencer

      February 10, 2015 at 5:47 pm

      @Walt Hanssen While I see your point, you do realize that in 2 years, BYU may be the tallest team in the county with 7 players 6’8″ or taller… (Mika, Dastrup, Neilson, Worthington, Hartsock, Shaw, Kaufusi) Two of which will be top 100 recruits (Mika, Dastrup)… That doesn’t include Aytes and Davis either, who are front court players and listed as 6’7″…

      That being said… I think they may need a better coach(es) to teach them. I’m not sure any of the current assistant coaches have proven they can help make a good or raw player great.

    • ralphjenkins91

      February 11, 2015 at 12:19 pm

      I think another problem that BYU has faced during that same stretch that Walt listed above is the lack of great PG play. Jimmer aside, we’ve had a string of unremarkable PGs in the program with the likes of Nick Martineau, Craig Cusick, Lamont Morgan Jr, Ben Murdock, the failed Brock Zylstra experiment, Mike Loyd Jr, Austin Ainge, Rashaun Broadus, etc.

      Some have been serviceable, I think Ainge and Broadus were serviceable PG’s but the best of that bunch not named Jimmer likely was Matt Carlino. He was so up and down it made you want to pull your hair out at times. It’s easy to see why UCLA moved him to SG.

      I think our PG situation has been worse than our Big situation. Also of note, Walt left Keena Young off his list of BYU bigs. He was MWC POY his senior year and an AP Honorable Mention All-American in 2006-2007. He’s one of the most underrated bigs BYU has ever had.

  3. Spencer

    February 18, 2015 at 10:57 am

    Complete agree with everything you said ralphjenkins… Let’s just hope Emery breaks the string of mediocre PGs, because behind Emery, PG depth is looking to be very thin in coming years… Unless Frank Jackson re-commits… Too bad BYU didn’t give Jesse Wade any attention whatsoever, because he wanted to go to BYU and they completely ignored him

    • Walt Hanssen

      February 18, 2015 at 11:45 am

      ralphjenkins91- I completely agree except I point out again that even with Tyler, Kyle & Anson this year (also Skyler & Chase) this year we still are weak up front and next year with Nick coming in (and losing Tyler & Mika still a year away) I don’t expect much. Until Rose starts attracting good to great big men we should expect not to beat Gonzaga ever. And as far as Jackson, go watch LP; he is only a ball hog with no passing and assist skills. I would rather have Nick & TJ in the future playing point than Frank any day

    • Walt Hanssen

      February 18, 2015 at 11:53 am

      Spencer- a better question is do we expect the football team to do any better than 8-5 this come season (I do) but if they end at 8-5 again we have gone four straight seasons with that record and with that does anybody think that Coach Mendenhall should or will get another extension? My answer is no; what say you?

      • Spencer

        February 20, 2015 at 10:01 am

        Football… ugh… I have been a typical optimistic BYU fan in the past, but I simply can’t do it anymore… And unfortunately I think a major problem is Bronco. Not as a man, but as a football coach. Talking strictly football, as a HEAD coach, I think one of, if not your most important responsibilities, is hiring good coordinators and assistant coaches. Coaches who can teach, call plays, and recruit. Bronco as failed MISERABLY at doing so. While I know it is relatively hard to find options for a new head coach at BYU, I would take about anything over Bronco at this point. As far as the players and team… I want them to be good, but I saw A LOT of weaknesses with Taysom out. I’ve been saying for a while now, for BYU to contend for the playoff (an extreme long-shot at this point) or even a New Years six bowl, I think they need either a new head coach or to join a P5 conference (for recruiting purposes)… But they probably need both.

    • ralphjenkins91

      February 20, 2015 at 11:04 am

      Didn’t Wade commit to Gonzaga? If he is the next in line of great Gonzaga PG’s following the likes of Kevin Pangos, Matt Bouldin, Jeremy Pargo, Derek Raivio, Blake Stepp, Richie Frahm, Dan Dickau, etc and continues their dominance in the WCC that will be painful to see knowing that he wanted to come to BYU and grew up in our backyard.

      I’m wondering if Wade was ignored because BYU coaches thought they had Frank Jackson in the bag. Makes it even more important that we hang onto Jackson and reel him back in.

      • Walt Hanssen

        February 20, 2015 at 11:52 am

        We shouldn’t want Jackson; has anyone seen him play? I saw him at the Marriott Center when LP lost to AF and Johnson from AF played an all around better game. Even when Frank was double teamed his only motive was to get to the rim and he had no regard to dish off to teammates who were wide open. He is a ball hog who has very few assists so what would be his value as a point guard? He could be a shooting guard but again he’s not a team first player. Nick will be great and will fit into Coach Rose’s system perfectly.

        • carson

          April 21, 2015 at 3:12 pm

          Actually Frank Jackson had 34 points and 5 rebounds that game.