Recap: BYU 89, UCSB 75

There's not a whole lot to say about BYU's 89-75 victory of UC Santa Barbara on Thursday, except that it was a good win. Despite their 5-5 record, UCSB is a solid team. For a little perspective, their five losses have come against San Diego State, UNLV, Washington, California, and now BYU. Those are all good programs — four are currently in the Top 70 in terms of RPI — and they played all but Cal very tight throughout. So even though the Cougars could never really pull away and dominate, a comfortable win over these Gauchos will serve as a nice resume line when all is said and done.

1. Matt Carlino's Quiet Excellence

If I would have watched this game with no sound and no on-screen stat graphics, I don't know if I would have guessed Matt Carlino finished with 22 points. It wasn't an in-your-face type of performance, but it was an excellent one. He shot the ball at an exceptionally high rate (57 percent), dished out 6 assists, and even registered two steals on the defensive end. Combine all that with only two turnovers (I'm not hanging the third one on him, because it wasn't his fault), and what you have is another excellent game by a very, very good young point guard. Consider me bullish on Matt Carlino.

In fact, allow me to go out on a bit of a limb here. Don't send rotten packages to my house or flame me on Twitter or anything like that. But I feel this needs to be said.

Based on what I've seen so far, Matt Carlino is a much, much better player than Jimmer Fredette ever was at any point during his freshman season.