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PROVO — BYU point guard Kyle Collinsworth had stepped on the plane hundreds of times during his career with the Cougars.
He wanted to enjoy the last departure from the Provo airport Sunday afternoon.
Collinsworth and the Cougars (26-10) took flight for New York City two days before the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament against top-seeded Valparaiso (29-6). An unfamiliar opponent and an unfamiliar landscape awaited Collinsworth, but there wasn’t any trepidation in his voice as he talked about it.
“I’m just going to enjoy the moment and enjoy this flight with the guys,” said Collinsworth, the NCAA’s all-time leader with 12 career triple-doubles. “It’s the whole process, and I want to enjoy it.
“I’ve been about everywhere else in the United States but there, so I’m pretty excited.”
That excitement has spread to the rest of the team.
“I think all the guys are excited. We’ve had really good practices since the win over Creighton, and I hope that we’ve got a good focus to us,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “We’ve had a nice little run here, and hopefully our guys can continue to play as a group; that’s been the key.”
Collinsworth wasn’t the only one going into uncharted territory. Only redshirt senior Nate Austin has been in this position before, having played on BYU’s NIT final four squad in 2013.
Even senior Chase Fischer, an East Coast native, was in a new place.
“I’ve never been to New York City, surprisingly,” said the native of Ripley, West Virginia. “But my parents are coming, and I’ve got a bunch of people coming to see the game.
“I’m not a big fan of big cities; I’m more of a country guy, so I stay on the outskirts.”
Fischer expects a significant number of family and friends making the eight-hour drive from West Virginia, and admitted they’ll need it for a talented Valparaiso team led by former Crusader star Bryce Drew.
“They play at a slower pace, but they are really effective offensively and a really physical, defensive team,” said Fischer, who considered a move to Valpo when transferring from Wake Forest. “I think it will be a good game, because we’re going to try to impose our style of fast play and shoot threes, while they slow it down and play it out for us.
“Coach Drew runs a really good program.”
Most important, the Crusaders know how to win as they go in search of their 30th victory in 2015-16.
“They know how to win,” Collinsworth said. “They’re a great defensive team, and they find ways to win. It’ll be a tough battle for us, and we’re excited.”
Valparaiso averages 75.7 points per game with an average margin of victory of 13.5 points. The Crusaders ranked 31st in the nation in KenPom’s overall rankings, with an average adjusted defense of 92.6 — the seventh-best mark in the nation.
Alec Peters leads Valpo with 18.5 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.
BYU hopes to do better than its last trip to the Garden in 2013, when it lost 76-70 to Pierre Jackson and Baylor in the semifinals.
There are plenty of similarities to this year’s squad from the 2013 version.
"I think the one thing I’ve felt about that team was that it was good enough to get in the NCAA Tournament and win games. I feel the same with this team. But this season, trying to build that resume, we’ve had too many setbacks and were a little inconsistent,” Rose said.
Now the NIT gives the Cougars a chance to prove it can still win in the NCAA’s second-tier national tournament.
“I think the most important thing in playing a team so late in the year that we know very little about, which we do in Valpo and how they play and what we do, is that we concentrate on ourselves,” Rose said. “We have five or six guys who score really well together in this run, and that’s what we’ll need.”
