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BYU center Brandon Davies is on pace to play against Loyola Marymount Thursday night in the Cougars' West Coast Conference opener, five days after spraining his right ankle in a weekend win over Virginia Tech.
The first-to-second degree sprain kept Davies off the practice floor on Monday, with some limited activity on Tuesday. Wednesday, he participated in the team's entire one hour, 40 minute practice at the Marriott Center, with head coach Dave Rose saying Davies' injured ankle "has progressively felt better each day."
"He practiced pretty good today," said Rose. "Hopefully it feels good tomorrow, and we can count on him."
For his part, Davies said the ankle "is making progress; it feels a hundred times better than it did...we're finally getting the swelling out it it."
"Day-by-day thing," said Davies after practice, "but it's feeling a lot better."
"This is our biggest game of the year, right here. It's our first conference game, and we've got to start this off right, and I'm pushing myself, the coaches are pushing me to do everything I can to get back out there."
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The league opener pits BYU against a Loyola Marymount team that controlled the Cougars from start to finish in staging a Marriott Center upset last January, 82-68. Davies said the revenge factor is "definitely" in play.
"We're fired up for it," Davies said Wednesday. "They came into our place and got us, and that hit us deep. You're going to see some fire in us tomorrow."
On the eve of his team's first foray into conference competition, Rose said "I think everybody thinks the same thing right now."
"Everybody believes that they've got a chance to win the league, and they believe that the first game is really important. What's really important for us is just to be able to execute and do the things that we do, and not try to change things."
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BYU enters league play with a 10-4 nonconference record and some reputable RPI and SOS numbers; the Lions are 7-6 with a lesser schedule, but feature the WCC's leading scorer in point guard Anthony Ireland, who netted 48 points in helping LMU split with BYU last season.
"You take (Baylor's) Pierre Jackson and (Virginia Tech's) Erick Green and Ireland," says Rose, "and we've played against some pretty good ones...elite guys in the country. Hopefully we've learned a but from playing those other two guys, but (Ireland) can score the ball in a lot of different ways."
"The key for us is to make him earn his shots; don't give him easy ones...when we get in the halfcourt, (we need to) keep him out of the middle of the floor, where he really likes to operate."
Ireland is the WCC pace-setter at 21.3 points per game, and also ranks in the top ten in assists and rebounds per game. He is second in the conference in minutes played, fourth in three-point percentage and sixth in steals.
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Rose on--
Juco transfer shooting guard Raul Delgado:
"I really believe that he can be a guy who can really ignite us offensively off the bench, and as he understands his defensive assignments better, will be able to play more and more."
Cory Calvert as a backup point guard:
"He earned minutes (versus Virginia Tech). There were a lot of other things we could have done besides play Cory, but he played well...it's a tough transition to try to come in and learn all the phases of our game and how we do things, and then still be able a the level you want to perform at, and I just think he's getting better and better."
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Football cross-over Bronson Kaufusi is expected to dress for the first time on Thursday night, although as of Wednesday afternoon, his game uniform had yet to arrive.
Thursday night's game will be the only conference home game played while the students are still on the holiday break.
Coverage of BYU v. LMU will get underway with pregame coverage at 6:00 p.m; the game tips at 7:00 on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM and BYU Radio (SiriusXM 143).
You can hear post-practice interviews with Rose and Davies in "Cougar Cuts," above left.
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