Hungry and humbled, BYU basketball trying to salvage season after 4-game skid

PROVO — BYU basketball coach Mark Pope looked tired when he stepped to the table after Tuesday afternoon's practice with his team, the result of a young coach searching for answers while mired in the longest losing skid of his short career.

The usual cheery, upbeat, overwhelming positivity of the gregarious head coach was all but gone. Four consecutive losses will do that to a lot of people; now think about how his players feel.

There's no easy way to say it, and Pope doesn't try to mince too many words when asked: the Cougars have lost their way. A team that was on the verge of the Associated Press Top 25 two weeks ago — and ranked No. 12 nationally just two months ago — is in a funk.

BYU will try to snap its four-game losing skid this week when the team heads to Los Angeles for two West Coast Conference games beginning Thursday against LMU (9 p.m. MST, ESPNU).

The Lions are just 9-12 overall on the season, and 2-7 in conference play — one of the worst teams in the league standings. But with the Cougars' current situation, no one can take any team for granted.

"We're hungry, digging deep, humbled, urgent and fatigued: all the things that we should be at this point in the season," Pope said. "But I think our guys are committed right now to try to come perform on Thursday."

None of the rest of the West Coast Conference teams can take any opponent for granted, either, after a pair of upsets Tuesday night. Portland picked up just its third conference win of the season, stunning San Francisco 69-68 to push the Dons towards the bubble. Santa Clara beat a ranked opponent for the first time since 2004 with a 77-72 win over No. 22 Saint Mary's as the KenPom top 100 Broncos look to be the most dangerous team in the conference not named Gonzaga.

The most important game is always the next one, to borrow one of Pope's many mantras employed during his three seasons in charge of the Cougar Cagers. But in this particular case, the next game is just as important as the next day.

The Cougars (17-8, 5-5 WCC) returned to practice Monday without starting point guard Te'Jon Lucas, who sustained a head and neck injury in last Thursday's 73-59 loss to San Francisco and did not play two nights later, a 90-57 setback to No. 2 Gonzaga.

But Lucas went through conditioning drills Monday, passed them with flying colors, and rejoined his team Tuesday afternoon in the Marriott Center to make his coach cautiously optimistic about a near return.

"We're hopeful," Pope said of the Milwaukee graduate transfer averaging 10.4 points and a team-high 4.4 assists per game. "We'll see how he feels after (practice)."

Lucas' absence Saturday night, or his ill effects in the game against the Dons, don't fully explain the Cougars' current skid — one that started on a buzzer-beating loss at Santa Clara and continued through a circus-like performance against Pacific.

"Two weeks ago, we were 74-70 with 45 seconds left and the ball. We were 45 seconds away from the best start in the history of BYU basketball in the WCC," Pope said. "This has punched us in the face. It really has. We've staggered a little bit."

BYU has never finished below third place in the conference, and with five games left until the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas, that streak may be in jeopardy. The Cougars are currently sixth in the league and a half-game behind San Diego — but with one of the easier schedules remaining, at least on paper.

Aside from a road game against Saint Mary's (19-4, 7-1) next Saturday, the rest of BYU's remaining slate seems manageable with a defacto home-and-home series with Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine (7-18, 1-9 WCC), ranked ninth and 10th in the league, respectively.

If that doesn't give the Cougars heart, consider this, as well: For as bad as the numbers have been during the four-game mire, the computers still favor BYU.

The Cougars rank 46th in KenPom and the NCAA's NET ratings and are among the Last Four In for an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. That's the same spot as analytics guru Bart Torvik, who puts BYU on roughly the same line as oft-debated North Carolina.

The bubble can shrink fast in the final weeks before March Madness. But if Selection Sunday were today, the Cougars would be in. This is still, after all, the team that is 9-7 in Quad One and Quad Two games — as good of a mark or better than any team from outside the Power Six conferences — with wins over San Diego State, Oregon, Saint Mary's, San Francisco and a fast-climbing Utah State squad that had its five-game winning streak snapped in overtime Tuesday night at Wyoming.

So the bigger issue becomes fixing whatever ails BYU right now and preparing them for the best seed they can get in the conference tournament. The Cougars rotated through their seventh different starting lineup Saturday against the Zags, starting Trevin Knell, Seneca Knight and Gideon George together for the first time all year.

But the four-game losing streak has some commonalities, too.

In each of the four games, BYU got off to a weakened start, being outscored by a total of 42 points in the first half by teams shooting 44.6% from the field and 33.7% from 3-point range.

Each time that left a team that has been largely dependent on Alex Barcello — who is averaging 17.0 points per game on .458 shooting that includes a .454 3-point percentage and .884 free-throw percentage — for offense with too big of a hole to overcome.

And while the Lions have largely struggled in Stan Johnson's second season in LA, they are narrowly out-shooting the Cougars on the season with a field-goal percentage of 44.3 to 44.0.

"It's not for a lack of effort. It's just a matter of putting the pieces together," said reserve guard Trey Stewart, who saw rare time as a freshman against the Zags. "That's our main concern, is playing as a team."

Stewart said the team has been working on whatever plagues the Cougars lately, be that analytically, physically or even emotionally. There's no hiding that something is wrong with BYU, but how to fix it is the problem for a four-game losing skid longer than any Pope has experienced since his second season at Utah Valley in 26-17 when the Wolverines went 17-17 overall.

No one cares to fix it more than the players and coaches, even if Stewart did say fans have been, shall we say, "zealous" in offering their own advice online, on campus, and even in stopping players at the grocery store with their own theories.

The Cougars appreciate the help. But right now, perhaps the biggest thing they can do is shut off the phones, tune out social media, and try to right the ship while the key goal of an NCAA Tournament berth still lies ahead.

Look internally, Pope says. That's where the answers lie.

"They care," he said of his squad. "They care just as much as the emotion that is poured out of these guys. ... It's enormous, the emotional capital that they put through this. The whole world doesn't see these guys in the moments when the moments are really hard. These guys are incredibly vulnerable, and that's how you are when you put your whole heart into something and go all-in.

"It's hard. It's actually one of the humbling things about coaching, is witnessing these guys do this. It's a journey."

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