PROVO — In recent years, for good reason, Dave Rose has bemoaned the fact that several players transferred out of the BYU basketball program.

The longtime coach laments losing what he terms program players, the kind who enter the system as freshmen and progressively improve over the years. Without them, the constant turnover prevents the team from calling on experienced players to supplement the team in any given season.

Not that the problem is unique to BYU. The situation has become an epidemic in college basketball, with an estimated 700 players changing teams annually in the offseason.

For BYU, the transfer issue is only part of the challenge in trying to field NCAA Tournament-worthy teams. The Cougars face another obstacle that is even a bigger problem — the LDS missionary program.

As much as transfers hurt the depth of BYU’s program, the number of players leaving and returning on missions at times wreaks havoc on the roster. Forget about continuity for the Cougars.

“We deal with all sorts of different things,” said BYU assistant coach Tim LaComb. “Just the juggling of it, the timelines and making everything fit and trying to accommodate it all is difficult.”

The missionary program creates issues on numerous levels for BYU basketball. With a roster dominated by returned missionaries, Rose has dealt with every conceivable circumstance in his 12 years as the head coach.

At the core level, missions often prevent the program from developing individual recruiting classes together. BYU rarely can count on incoming players to be on the same teams for four or five consecutive seasons.

Latest examples from Lone Peak

The latest example in a long line involves the players from Lone Peak High. Highly touted coming out of high school, the trio of Eric Mika, T.J. Haws and Nick Emery played together for only one season.

Each player took a different route in serving a mission, preventing them from being on the same team until last season. Mika chose to play one season at BYU before leaving, while the other two went directly out of high school. A health issue forced Emery to come home earlier than the expected two years, meaning his eligibility started while the other two were still gone.

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Eric Mika to stay in NBA Draft, foregoes final 2 seasons at BYU

BYU’s formerly named “Lone Peak trio” is down to two.

The anticipated conference championships and deep NCAA Tournament appearances never materialized. Once Mika decided to enter this month’s NBA draft, the postseason and all the so-called LP3 could manage was to finish in third place in the West Coast Conference and go 0-1 in the NIT.

All the hope BYU fans had ended in disappointment. They can only dream of what might have happened if the three could have played together beyond one season in which Haws was a freshman and the other two were sophomores.

'A lot of unknowns'

Over the years, BYU has had to deal with similar circumstances, including players coming home early or flip-flopping on whether to serve a mission or not. All the coaches can do is ask a player to make a decision either way and hopefully, stick to it.

“I guess there’s just a lot of unknowns,” LaComb said. “I think the one thing in college basketball you really try to hone in on the most you can are knowns, things that you really can kind of count on. And it just kind of weakens your positioning on knowing all the time what to expect.”

Besides messing with continuity, missions also take a toll on skill level and conditioning. Depending on the mission and individual situation, players can return grossly out of shape.

BYU saw that issue last season with Payton Dastrup, who served a mission straight out of high school and then began his college career as an overweight freshman. A touted recruit from Arizona who originally committed to Ohio State, Dastrup was best known last season for sideline cheering.

In terms of on-court production, last season was basically a waste for him. Without Mika, BYU needs Dastrup to contribute next season.

“That was a yearlong process to get him back to where he’s now ready to have an offseason to prepare himself to play,” LaComb said.

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