Patrick Kinahan: BYU's Rose says everybody wants to be the star


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PROVO — One week ago, after getting hammered by Saint Mary’s at home, the BYU basketball team stumbled through what Dave Rose labeled as two of the worst practices in his 12 years as the coach.

The Cougars were awash in pity and doubt, having blown another chance to make a splash against a nationally ranked team. The season, to that point, was rife with a series of disappointments. Going back 20 years, which includes eight spent as an assistant, Rose had never seen a BYU team as down as this group.

Naturally, in the face of overwhelming odds, the Cougars played their best game of the season to beat No. 1-ranked Gonzaga on Senior Night in Spokane, Washington.

“There’s a huge difference between last week and this week,” Rose said in an interview with David James and myself on 97.5-FM and 1280-AM The Zone. “Hopefully, we can use this the right way, because we haven’t been very good when we’ve been feeling good. We’ve kind of taken a couple of losses when we’ve been feeling good about ourselves.”

The stunner led to the obvious question: Why could BYU beat a 29-0 team but lose to the likes of lowly San Diego and Pepperdine?

The answers boil down to inexperience, injuries and reputations.

The first two reasons are related to each other, as BYU lost its only two seniors — Kyle Davis and L.J. Rose — to injuries. But the bigger issue is much more complicated. To simplify, BYU has had too many wannabe-stars and not enough role players. Not every player can be a big-time scorer, like he was in high school or AAU leagues.

“Everybody wants to be the star,” Rose said “I don’t understand that.”

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No wonder he doesn’t. Rose played on a college team at Houston that featured future Hall of Famer players Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, meaning he needed to accept doing the dirty work to get playing time.

Right now, Eric Mika is the only star on this team. Everybody else, no matter their prior credentials, has to accept a particular role for BYU to be successful.

All season, Rose has tried to get his team to understand this. The Cougars got the message against Gonzaga.

“I can really relate to the fact that being a part of a really good team can help you for the rest of your life,” Rose said. “I understand that, and I think there’s a lot of guys who have been through our program and been through it that can tell you that. But it’s just hard right now for young guys to actually see that.”

If it isn’t there, they look to find elsewhere.

The transfer epidemic that plagues college basketball — Rose put the number of players who transfer each offseason at 600-700 — hit BYU hard. For various reasons, BYU had several players leave the program, resulting in fielding such a young team this season.

The top five players are all sophomores or freshmen. Accounting for LDS missions, a redshirt and one being a high school senior, Nick Emery is the only player of the five to play last season.

For much of this season, the core players didn’t know where to turn during tough situations in close games.

“There’s not a real experienced core to go to,” Rose said. “These young guys look around at each when things aren’t going well and they wonder who’s the guy that’s going to do it. Then some nights we look around at each other and every one of us thinks we’re going to do it by ourselves.”

Through trial and error along with the injuries, this team has had to reinvent itself multiple times this season. Besides Mika, the current version features TJ Haws at the point, Elijah Bryant at the wing with Yoeli Childs down low and Emery as a tough defender and secondary scorer.

In short order, the team needs to follow Mika’s lead.

“We weren’t that good last week, but we were really good on the weekend,” Rose said. “What I really hope I see is guys believing in each other and not take this like, ‘OK, hey, it’s my turn and I’m going to be the one to get this done,’ but that we can continue to play together, believe in each other and realize that the sky’s the limit for us if we can all get on the same page.”

With a bid to the NIT already likely sealed, BYU probably needs to win the West Coast Conference tournament to play in the NCAA Tournament. The tall order would likely mean beating Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga on consecutive nights next week in Las Vegas.

And why not, Rose asks. Confidence is the key for a team he believes at some point will be as good as any he’s coached.

“The one thing that I’m really, really confident in our guys is that this team is still together, they still believe in themselves and they still believe in each other,” Rose said. “We’ve been through a lot, and sometimes that experience can make you a lot tougher. Hopefully, with the success we’ve just had and building on that, we can make a nice little run here at the end.”

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