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PROVO — The most excited Yoeli Childs got over a BYU basketball play this year was a dunk.
And it wasn’t even his own.
Childs, in fact, wasn’t even on the floor when it happened.
With 1:55 remaining of a 30-point rout of in-state foe Weber State — the team that dropped 113 points on the Cougars a year earlier in Ogden — BYU's TJ Haws stole the ball away from Kham Davis. The senior from Alpine raced down the court in transition, stepped to the left side of the rim, and began to rise toward the hoop.
“Was he going to do it?” his teammates thought in collective unison about the 6-foot point guard.
Then, with one hand and a smile the whole way up, Haws threw down a jam with authority, capping a 91-61 win over the Wildcats that brought Christmas cheer to the less-than-capacity announced crowd of 11,662 fans Saturday night at the Marriott Center for their third-straight win.
“I’ve never jumped so high in my life on a sideline. I thought I was going to hurt myself,” said Childs, who finished with 28 points, eight rebounds and two assists. “That was hands down the best dunk; come on. Are you serious? I’m making that my screensaver. I need a poster. If my wife’s OK with it, I might name my first son ‘Tyson.’
“That was sick.”
It was one of several highlights of the night, but almost the only one anybody wanted to talk about. Not a 19-2 run through the first half that turned a single-digit game into a blowout by halftime. Not Childs, who connected on his first 10 field goals and finished by making 11 of 13 from the field, including his only 3-point attempt and 5 of 8 free throws.
Not even Alex Barcello, who tied for a game-high four triples for 18 points on a night when five BYU players scored in double figures and the Cougars assisted on 25 of 35 made baskets.
They all wanted to talk about Haws, who finished with 9 points and eight assists and the highlight-reel dunk by a shooter best known this year for his game-winner at Houston.
“I got the whole-court view,” Barcello said. “I saw him as he got that steal, and he got to the side to size the guy up. Then I knew he was punching it in.”
Haws wasn’t the only one playing in an unfamiliar way, either.
Dalton Nixon started his first game at center, joining Childs on the front line for the first time this season. With Kolby Lee out with a knee injury, the senior who has come off the bench since Childs returned from a nine-game NCAA-mandated suspension slid back into the starting five.
That meant defending bigs, like Weber State's Michal Kozak, and trying to hold his own on the glass.
Somehow, it worked. Nixon had just three rebounds to go along with his 11 points, but BYU outrebounded the Wildcats — who regularly play four guards — 36-26. Childs had eight rebounds, Zac Seljaas added seven, Haws finished with five and Jake Toolson supplied four boards.
“There’s a lot of space, with Yoeli in the post,” Nixon said. “The biggest thing is just to be physical, and holding my own on the glass. But I have great teammates, and we make a team effort when we go small. We play as a team, get rebounds as a team, and I definitely have to thank my teammates for having my back when I’m undersized down low.”
Lee’s injury isn’t expected to keep him out for long; BYU head coach Mark Pope confirmed doctors aren’t planning on sending him in for surgery.
Lee might even be back by next week, even. It all depends if he can recover his range of motion by BYU’s tipoff next Saturday, Dec. 28, against Oral Roberts in the Cougars’ non-conference finale (7 p.m. MST, BYUtv).
“He felt way better today than yesterday,” Pope said. “He’s going to be on the bike a lot in the next few days; he’ll open his presents on the stationary bike. He’s going to FaceTime me the whole time so I can see it, and maybe we’ll post it (on social media).
“But I told him, I need him back by next Saturday. He’s going to work really hard, and we’ll see how his body responds.”
In the meantime, the Cougars will respond with numbers. Not the high-volume numbers of a team that goes 10 to 12 players deep; BYU doesn’t have that. But they do have a number of players who share the ball, look for good shots, and space the floor, whether to get a putback basket or defend the glass.
And much like their shots, they have confidence in Nixon.
“You throw him at any position, he’s going to score,” Barcello said of the senior from Orem. “He can shoot it, he can get inside. He’s a big body.
“He’s a player — a basketball player.”
