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PROVO — TJ Haws has already tried to move on in the season, his final year with BYU basketball, to the Cougars’ next road game at Boise State.
It’s something he has learned to do time and time again: next game, next man, next opponent on the schedule. One game at a time. All the cliches.
But he still remembers the final seconds of the Cougars’ thrilling 72-71 win at Houston, racing up the court — there was supposed to be a ball screen, but there was no time for that. He remembers sliding over to the right side of the arc, stepping back, and launching a jumper over the long arm of Quentin Grimes.
He remembers waiting — hope, praying — as the shot bounded toward the rim. He remembers the ball bouncing off the rim — how long it hovered in the air — and how the collective breath of the near-sellout crowd at the recently renovated Fertitta Center, a crowd that contained former BYU coach Dave Rose with his jersey in the rafters and all, held in a moment of silence.
“It looked like it was short, but it was perfectly short,” BYU coach Mark Pope recalled a few days later. “You want it to be perfectly short. So it was great.”
And then Haws remembers the ball falling through the hoop, the buzzer going off, and BYU Radio analyst Mark Durrant jumping up from his sideline seat. Haws ran to Durrant, jumped in his arms, and his teammates sprinted across the court to mob him in a moment of pure ecstasy.
“It definitely was something I will never forget,” Haws said. “That feeling and that celebration with the guys, and that win is definitely something that is very special to me and to this team. I will never forget that.”
The win was also special to the team, because it was the first road win of the season for BYU (3-1), which continues its road trip Wednesday night at Boise State (8 p.m. MST, CBS Sports Network). It’s a road trip that will take them from the eastern edge of Texas to the Idaho panhandle and down to the Hawaiian Islands, for a tipoff against UCLA in the prestigious Maui Invitational.
But it was also the Cougars’ first road test of the year. And for all intents and purposes, they passed.
It wasn’t an A for BYU, but it was enough for a team approaching the mid-way mark of Yoeli Childs’ nine-game NCAA suspension with a one-loss record.
The Cougars were outrebounded for the fourth-straight game — that’s probably the norm for a team dealing with a significant size disadvantage in Childs’ absence. But Kolby Lee is getting better in the post, Dalton Nixon is coming into his own to counteract some rebounding edges in the high post, and BYU’s shooters — Haws, Jake Toolson and Arizona transfer Alex Barcello — are seeing their shots fall more often than not.
It’s not easy to survive and advance in the NCAA Tournament. The Cougars are getting that same experience in November, and they got it done on the road, in front of a hostile environment a time zone away from the Marriott Center.
“I think we responded well as a group to the pressures of being on the road, but individually there were a lot of plays not made that needed to be made,” Pope said. “It’s a little new for me, playing in the Marriott Center, because we get 11 or 12 or 15,000 people every single night. You’re used to playing in a gym with a ton of energy. You’re used to playing in front of a crowd. I think sometimes there may be more pressure in this building than there is out of it.
“I don’t expect that we are going to have big problems dealing with emotions or a crowd on the road. I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re fortunate to play in this building.”
BYU is also used to playing together, with seven seniors on the roster. That, perhaps, is the Cougars’ biggest advantage.
“That’s a very veteran, well-disciplined team that really understands exactly what they are trying to do,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said after the red Cougars lost to the blue Cougars. “You could tell at times tonight, it looked like men against boys — not in terms of being physical, but experience-wise, in how young we are and how old they are.
“They’re a good team. They’re not a great team, but they’re a good team. Their strength is their age and how veteran they are.”
It’s also a team that is learning how to fight — at home, on the road, with their strengths and weaknesses, and often shorthanded disadvantages.
It’s a lesson that will treat the Cougars well come West Coast Conference play in January, come conference tournament time in February, and come March, when BYU hopes to be playing its best ball and snap a four-year drought away from the NCAA Tournament.
“I was really proud of our guys; I thought for 40 minutes, we battled,” Haws said. “We weren’t perfect, by any means, and we have many areas that we can improve on. But I thought our battle, our fight, and our urgency all night was very good. They’re a big, talented, aggressive, athletic team, and I thought our fight was what got us over the top in the end.”
