Injury-plagued Cougars head back on WCC road


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Add Anson Winder to the list of BYU players who have spent time on this season's injured list. Winder's status for the Cougars' upcoming road swing to Pacific and St. Mary's is up in the air after a knee injury suffered during Saturday's home win over Loyola Marymount.

BYU head coach Dave Rose, asked on Tuesday if Winder would be able to play on Thursday in Stockton, said "right now, we don't know."

"It's just a matter of seeing how quickly it will heal," said Rose. "He wanted to do more (in practice) than he did today, so that was a little discouraging. Hopefully it heals quick."

Rose said the injury occurred when a player fell on Winder's right knee during a spill in the first half of BYU's 85-72 win over LMU, after which Winder went on to play 19 second-half minutes.

Winder underwent a Monday MRI, with Rose only calling the diagnosis "an issue with his knee." The injury is said to be unrelated to a right-knee bone bruise/IT band soreness Winder has been experiencing; "same knee, different issue," said Rose.

Considering Kyle Collinsworth's rehab from ACL surgery, Jamal Aytes' indefinite absence after ankle surgey, Corbin Kaufusi's early-season ankle sprains, Nate Austin's month-long absence with a torn hamstring, Tyler Haws mid-season moderate ankle sprain and now Winder's condition, Rose was asked if 2014-15 has been the most challenging season of his BYU tenure, from an injury standpoint.

The coach responded that "the one thing that is different is the continual amount of change. You think you have your group and you've kind of found yourself, then there seems to be another hit and then you've got to figure that out. That's probably been one of the top challenges of (my ten) seasons (as head coach)."

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Already lugging a rather heavy load as BYU's leader in rebounds, assists and steals (4th in scoring), point guard Kyle Collinsworth may be asked to do even more, in response to both the team's health situation and Rose's desire to get Collinsworth in a position to score more points from around the basket during what are expected to be two physical games this weekend.

"Kyle is such an important part of about five different parts of our game," Rose says. "We'll probably add a little bit more to his plate and get him in the post a little bit more, to bring the ball down there."

"I thought that last year at the end of the year, we were playing really physical up front, and we need to get to that point, with whatever personnel we decide on. We need to get to that."

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The fastest-tempo team in the West Coast Conference and the highest-scoring team in the country, BYU will this weekend face the slowest and second-slowest WCC teams in Pacific on Thursday, and St. Mary's on Saturday. The two teams played a plodding, 56-possession game last weekend, in which the winning team only hit the 50-point plateau in the closing minute.

"This will be a really physical weekend," said Rose on Tuesday. "We're going to have to have our guys play through contact. All of the things that we do, we've got be really good at, knowing that it's going to be a real physical battle."

"The pace is going to have to be good. Both these games will be played right around the basket, especially on the defensive end, and hopefully well have enough intestinal fortitude, strength, urgency, emotion...all of those things to compete with these two teams because they're both really big, physical teams."

"They've got some really good guards and they're just a scrappy bunch of guys that play really hard and give a lot of resistance," said BYU guard Tyler Haws of Pacific after Tuesday afternoon's Marriott Center practice. "They're kind of a defensive minded team, and it's going to be a bloodbath."

Haws added that BYU is looking forward to the game even more so after the Tigers upset BYU last season in Stockton. It was the last true away loss for a Cougar team that has since won six consecutive away games, marking the longest current road win streak in NCAA Division I hoops.

"It's a fun challenge to go into any place and get a win," said Haws. "We've had some really good road wins this year and we play hard on the road. We want to go into other (venues), play scrappy and play hard. This group looks forward to those challenges."

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BYU takes a 14-5 overall record and 4-2 conference ledger into Thursday night's game at the Alex G. Spanos Center in Stockton. The Tigers are 9-8 on the season and 1-4 in the WCC; Ron Verlin's team has lost four of its five league games after winning five of its final six non-conference contests.

You can hear Thursday's game on KSL Newsradio, starting with pregame coverage at 8:00 p.m. MST. Tipoff is at 9:05 and the game will be televised on ESPNU.

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Greg Wrubell

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