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PROVO — Even without admitting it publicly, you could tell Spencer Johnson has spent much of the past month thinking about the loss at Pacific.
His teammates have, too, even if the BYU men's basketball team has long moved past the 76-73 loss to Pacific that was the low point of the season, the Cougars' only Quad 4 loss of the Mark Pope era and the biggest blemish on an otherwise NCAA Tournament-caliber resume.
With 54 seconds left in Stockton, California, Alex Barcello drained a 3-pointer that pulled the Cougars within 2 points — with all the momentum.
But BYU could get no closer. What followed was a mini-tragedy of errors, featuring three steals and two turnovers — not to mention four free throws — in the final 41 seconds as BYU fell 76-73, the first time in Pope's three years that the Cougars have failed to respond from a loss with a win.
"We just didn't really have any energy," said Johnson, speaking publicly for the first time about the Jan. 29 loss. "Everybody hits a point in the season in the trenches of January and February where it gets hard and long; you're in the grind, and sometimes it's easy to lose energy and lose focus.
"We just didn't have a ton of fight. Clearly, it showed; we didn't play very well. We couldn't get stops. I think it will be different this time around if we played them."
That loss turned into three, which then became four, when San Francisco and Gonzaga came to the Marriott Center to cap off the longest losing skid of the Mark Pope era. It's that skid that has BYU opening the West Coast Conference Tournament earlier than it ever has before, a 7 p.m. MST tipoff Friday as the No. 5 seed.
The Cougars' opponent that night? It could be Loyola Marymount, which BYU has played — and beaten — twice in the final three weeks of the regular season, thanks to the WCC's unbalanced schedule. Or it could be Pacific, that same team that handed the Cougars the loss on a weird weekend night in a gym shut down for a lengthy delay because the Tigers couldn't shut off an inadvertent shot clock.
Johnson will take either matchup Friday — he knows that the most important thing is to win that gameand advance to face San Francisco, currently ranked No. 28 in the NET and a Quad 1 neutral-site game with potential NCAA Tournament implications Saturday night at the Orleans Arena.
But deep down, even without fully admitting, it's easy to tell this team wants another crack at Pacific.
"It doesn't matter to me," Johnson said, before slyly adding, "but it would be nice to play Pacific again; that would be fun. A redemption game."
Beyond that stretch, he also feels like the Cougars have corrected many of their issues from the skid. Johnson has been a key reason why, too, coming off the bench in all 29 games he's played to average 5.8 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game in less than 20 minutes.
The Salt Lake Community College transfer who prepped at nearby American Fork has scored in double figures eight times this season, including a career-high 15 points on Dec. 1 against Utah Valley. But he's been more than a scorer, shooting 45% from the field and often being one of the first players off the bench as Pope turns to his 6-foot-5 frame as part of his lengthy defensive lineup.
A big part of Johnson's game, by his own admission, involves "making sure we're locked in defensively" and leading the Cougars' ball-screen coverage and defensive rotations.
There's some saltiness to his game; and right now, Pope admits there is a lot of saltiness among his team that knows it needs to win at least two games in Las Vegas to have any chance of an NCAA Tournament bid.
"We had some guys that were salty; that made me really happy," Pope said after Tuesday's practice in the Marriott Center. "That's how you have to be as we translate this into tomorrow and Thursday and a massive game on Friday.
"But that's what we want. I think the guys have some juice right now. It makes me excited."
Get to that Monday semifinal, where BYU would face top-ranked Gonzaga for a third time, and anything can happen. The Cougars (21-9, 9-6 WCC) would be massive underdogs in Sin City, but they were a year ago when facing the Bulldogs in the tournament title game at the Orleans Arena.
BYU had then-unbeaten Gonzaga on the ropes that night, using an 11-0 run in the first half to build up a 12-point halftime lead. But Jalen Suggs scored 23 points, including two late 3-pointers, to rally the Zags to the win against a fellow NCAA Tournament team, 88-78.
"Gonzaga was really good last year, too, huh?" Johnson recalled pensively. "I hope we get to play them again this year; I really do.
"Our team is different this year than it was last year, and we have a lot of guys that are ready to take on that challenge, to compete and fight with them. The two times we played them this year haven't been great games; they've blown us out. But I think if we get them again, we're going to be ready. The experience from last year teaches us that we can have a 10-12 lead at halftime, and us returning guys hope we get to play them again. It's going to be a 40-minute game, and we're going to get after them."
Injury notes
Seneca Knight did not practice in full Tuesday afternoon as he continues to recover from a wrist injury suffered two weeks ago at Saint Mary's. But the junior transfer from San Jose State put up shots with the team in both practices this week as he works back into form, Pope said.
"He's doing good," Pope said. "It's just kind of a day-by-day thing that we'll see."
Without Knight, the Cougars have trimmed the regular rotation to just eight players, including Caleb Lohner and Fousseyni Traore — who continue to recover from nagging injuries suffered during the year.
It's one reason why BYU didn't schedule a make-up game against a Quad 1 nonconference opponent this week that could have been added when the league opener against Portland was canceled due to COVID-19. The Cougars had a game tentatively aligned for Monday, but didn't feel playing on a quick turnaround from Saturday night — and not practicing Sunday — with a flight to the other team's campus made sense for their current position.
"That's where you are in this part of the season," Pope said. "That's why it's so much fun.
"When you get to that moment, you're battered and beaten, with shots at your confidence, strife in your locker room; that's when you walk into the biggest moment — because you have to battle through all this stuff. It's an incredible experience for our guys to grow.
"The postseason, there's nothing like it."
Postseason awards
The West Coast Conference will release its annual postseason awards Wednesday morning, a conference spokesman said. The honors are voted on annually by the league's 10 coaches.
