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With his team on its second two-game losing skid of the season, BYU head basketball coach Dave Rose on Thursday said that "sometimes adversity can really strengthen your team, if everybody approaches it right and has the right attitude."
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Losses at San Diego and home to San Francisco all but mathematically took the Cougars out of contention for the conference crown and at the same time removed BYU from the NCAA Tournament bubble, but Rose observed after Thursday's practice that "the guys have been positive, and I think that's the most important thing right now, is for our guys to continue to believe in our team and believe in each other and I think from what we've seen, that's a good sign."
BYU has its first West Coast Conference bye this week, with no mid-week contest scheduled, then Portland visiting the Marriott Center on Saturday--the first of five regular season games remaining before the conference tournament in Las Vegas. Sophomore wing Tyler Haws says "we still have a lot to play for."
"We're staying positive, and looking forward to the next few weeks," said Haws. "You can't let yourself get down in the dumps; you've got to keep looking forward and just keep taking it one day at a time. It's a long season."
"This team still has a lot to prove, and there are still some big things ahead for us."
You can hear post-practive interviews with Rose, Haws, Brandon Davies, Josh Sharp, Bronson Kaufusi and Cory Calvert in "Cougar Cuts," above left.
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Having said earlier in the week, that "you can't re-invent your team right now," Rose nonetheless has been experimenting with different personnel permutations in practice. Craig Cusick, who has made nine of 12 three-point attempts in conference play (including his last six in a row from the arc), was running with the first group in Thursday's session.
Asked if Cusick might return to the starting lineup, Rose said "we don't know that for sure."
"We're trying to play different combinations because we believe that some of the adjustments we can make (involve) adjusting our personnel around. How we actually start the game...we haven't decided that."
On the possibility of discovering additional depth in the season's remaining weeks, Rose said "we would like to (expand depth)...but I don't know if you can really commit to expanding the depth of your team until you get a feel for how guys are playing."
"I do believe that that break has been good for us. We have practice a lot of different combinations that we kind of got away from, because of the rhythm that we were in...we just kind of stayed with the same group, and here the last two or three days we've been able to look at a lot of different things."
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BYU has never lost to Portland, going 8-0 against the Pilots all-time, including an 85-67 win at the Chiles Center last month. Portland (9-17, 2-7 WCC) visits San Francisco tonight before facing BYU Saturday night.
BYU and Portland can be heard on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM and BYU Radio (SiriusXM 143) beginning with pregame coverage at 6:00 p.m., with the tipoff at 7:00.
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Photo: Courtesy BYU Photo
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