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LAS VEGAS — On the road, away from the rows of smiling fans and praises that rang down on the first year of Mark Pope’s tenure as head coach, BYU basketball faced a battle.
The enemy? Long-time nemesis Saint Mary’s, the team that has had its number perhaps more than any other since joining the West Coast Conference in 2011.
The stakes? A berth in the WCC Tournament final.
The struggles? A depleted roster, one without starting posts Dalton Nixon and Kolby Lee — the former out with an ankle injury and the latter sidelined by a bug that kept him from even getting to Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Monday night.
So the fight commenced, the battle continued, and the Cougars did what they have always done: they fought back.
This time, however, they lost. The Gaels took two of the season’s three games from BYU, putting the final touches on a likely NCAA Tournament bid with a 51-50 win over the Cougars late Monday night.
The Gaels will be going to the WCC Tournament title game, where they will face Gonzaga in that team’s 23rd-straight championship game. The Cougars are going home, victims of a one-and-done defeat that will have them searching for answers and angling for a response over the five nights until Selection Sunday.
Like last year, BYU (24-8) was sent packing after just one game in the conference tournament. Unlike last year, however, the Cougars know that Monday night was not the end of their season. There will be another chance to wash away the stain of this defeat, a chance to vindicate the disappointment, to ease the sting of an opportunity slipped away.
“It’s incredibly disappointing. It’s going to hurt more in an hour or two, and then it’ll hurt way more tomorrow,” Pope said. “But then we have to pick ourselves up and jump into this thing. These guys have worked really hard this year, and they’ve had a spectacular season out here.
“They’ve earned an opportunity to play in this tournament, and none of them are going to take it lightly.”
BYU has largely written its own story all year, scribbled with its own pen with most of its own ink.
From the plight of Arizona transfer Alex Barcello, thrust from his homeland into the lands to the north, where he connected immediately with a first-year coaching staff and unlocked potential in himself unseen since high school when he was an all-state and Gatorade Player of the Year-caliber player.
From Zac Seljaas, the former 3-point marksman who remade himself into a bona fide forward, a post among guards who can delicately balance both avenues.
From Connor Harding, the Cougars’ defensive stopper, and Jake Toolson, the reigning WAC Player of the Year who was named the top newcomer in his new league by all 10 coaches.
From TJ Haws, who celebrated BYU’s last matchup against Saint Mary’s with a walk-off game-winner and rushing his then-pregnant wife to the hospital for the birth of their first child, a son named after his father (Tyson) and his grandfather (Ralph).
From Yoeli Childs, a potential NBA star who returned for one final year and rose to become one of the top power forwards in the country.
The story they’ve all been will have another chapter. Not an epilogue — not yet — but another series of pages to turn before the book’s end.
This isn’t the climax; it’s more of a plot device.
“Saint Mary’s was tougher than us, they were more physical than us, and they really got us out of our stuff,” said Childs, who had 23 points and 10 rebounds for the 45th double-double of his remarkable career. “Moving forward, we’ll play with more force. We’ll be more aggressive. We’ll prepare to move through that contact and play the right way.”
Even Monday night’s pain — the sting, the heartache, the disappointment when St. Mary’s guard Jordan Ford sunk his 17-foot jump shot with 2 seconds left — can end with a happy ending. It’ll just take a little work, a little sweat, and a few tears — not unlike the ones shed in the BYU locker room inside Orleans Arena.
Give all credit to Saint Mary’s, to Ford, to head coach Randy Bennett and his crew fighting for their postseason lives.
But learn from it, too.
“I think they did a good job of taking us out of what we normally do, what we want to do,” said Toolson, who had 11 points and eight rebounds against the Gaels. “They were very physical with us and made us play one-on-one.
“Moving forward, we need to share the ball and play with more force to get those shots that we’ve gotten all season long. I think this will help us moving forward.”
The future starts now. There’s just enough time for BYU to make its final corrections, and prepare for an NCAA Tournament — one not guaranteed, but incredibly likely. Indeed, it would be shocking if the Cougars missed out on the Big Dance.
“They’ve rung the bell every time this year. The last time we suffered a loss, we ran off nine-straight with some epic wins,” Pope said. “I trust this group. It’s a player-led group, and we have some unbelievable leadership. We don’t have any choice but to do that now.”
