Can BYU stop giving their fans heart attacks?

Full disclosure: I'm a BYU fan myself, and this is an opinion piece. Thus, I am biased and freely admit this.

At the time of writing this, BYU’s Men’s basketball team is 6-1, having just beaten Dayton to win the ESPN Events Invitational. A common complaint from BYU fans about this and other wins this season is that the Cougars’ first-half offense has been lackluster, leading to games that feel rather cardiac.

For example, in the game against Dayton, the Cougars scored 30  first-half points to Dayton’s 36. While BYU scored 53 points in the second half, winning 83-79, and while ESPN's win probability tracker initially favored Dayton for a brief segment of the first half, this presents an issue with the first-half offense that needs to be addressed.

Now, one game doesn't necessarily prove a point. If it were just the one game, you could argue that BYU just had a rough first half against Dayton. The Flyers only had one loss prior to BYU, after all.

The issue is that it isn't just the one game. Most of the games have BYU being outscored in the first half. In the previous game against Miami, BYU scored 29 first-half points, coming back to win 72-62. In the win against Delaware, they scored 34 in the first half. In the loss against UConn, they scored 32 in the opening frame. Now, the wins against Holy Cross (58 first-half points), Villanova (42 first-half points), and Wisconsin (45 first-half points) do not follow this pattern. However, when four out of (as of writing this) seven games have BYU being outscored in the first half. That is a concerning pattern, especially from a team that, at the time of writing, is ranked at ninth in the AP Poll.

Now, maybe this will change. As a fan of this team and the game in general, I hope it does. At the end of the day, it's the final total that matters, not just the first half. However, I feel it needs to change if this team is going anywhere in March.