'He has one speed': As No. 20 BYU's bench shrinks, Richie Saunders' role expands

LUBBOCK, Texas — At one point in Tuesday night's 87-72 win over No. 24 Iowa State, BYU basketball coach Mark Pope had to have looked down the line at his bench ready to make a substitution and found few willing faces.

The Cougars were battered, with regular starters Trevin Knell (foot) and Fousseyni Traore (hamstring) both on the mend. The duo joined Dawson Baker, who has since confirmed he will undergo foot surgery that will shut down the remainder of the UC Irvine transfer's 2023-24 season.

Even walk-on post Tredyn Christensen limped on and off the bench with a knee brace, as if highlighting the state of the roster.

So Pope ran with seven players for most of the game — and backup center Atiki Ally Atiki only played eight minutes with foul trouble — en route to the 15-point win over a top-10 team in the NET rankings.

Through the chaos of the Cougars' first season in what most describe as the best college basketball conference in America, BYU has been provided with a substantial lift off the bench en route to a 14-3 record and 2-2 mark in Big 12 play.

The Cougars rank eighth nationally in bench points per game, averaging 34.9 per contest, but much of that has come from Jaxson Robinson, the 6-foot-7 former Arkansas transfer from Ada, Oklahoma, who has elevated his NBA draft stock averaging a team-high 14.3 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game in his sixth-man role.

With Knell ruled out of the starting lineup, Robinson's role was pushed to the forefront (he finished with 15 points in 31 minutes). So who would replace Robinson's energetic time off the pine?

Hello, Richie Saunders.

The 6-foot-5 sophomore from Riverton by way of Wasatch Academy has been a key cog in the Cougars' rotation, averaging a career-best 10.0 points per game and scoring in double figures seven times this year, including 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting, two boards and two steals against the Cyclones.

He may also be called in for even more big minutes Saturday against the 14-3 Red Raiders (4 p.m. MST, ESPN2).

"How can you not love Richie Saunders, right? He has one speed; he literally only knows one speed, for good and for bad," Pope said Thursday with a smile on his face. "He picked up two fouls almost back-to-back last game, because he just can't slow it down. I'd take the problem every time, though. He's really special.

"He leaves his whole heart and soul on the floor every game. There's no coach in America that wouldn't love to have Richie Saunders on their roster, because you know exactly what you're getting."

Pope doesn't expect Knell or Traore to have suffered long-term setbacks, and both made the flight to Lubbock, where they will be game-time decisions at United Supermarkets Arena.

Medical testing has been positive on Knell's foot, which he hurt in the second half of last Saturday's 63-58 win over UCF, and Traore worked out this week and was cleared to play "literally right as we tipped off," Pope said before explaining he opted out of playing the Mali international out of precaution.

"He's in that space where he's probably 85-90% on that hamstring," Pope said of Traore. "It's just scary; it's a fragile piece of hardware. We're kind of going to keep dancing and figure it out."

But with eyes as equally on the athletic training room as the Big 12 standings, where BYU is in a seven-way tie for fourth at 2-2, the shift turns to the Cougars' rotations — including from the recent starter who was the biggest scoring spark off the bench before Tuesday.

Robinson's move to the starting five was followed up by Saunders' perhaps equally impressive outburst, and the Cougars will need both this weekend.

"That dude's relentless," Robinson said of Saunders. "He keeps going to the offensive glass, defensive glass, guards their best player most times. He does everything, and he's one of my favorite teams I've ever played with."

Pope added that BYU will prefer to have contributions from "all 15 guys on the roster" sometime this season, and each one will be necessary, even as he played Tanner Hayhurst, Jared McGregor and Townsend Tripple in the final minute against Iowa State, substituting every available player except Trey Stewart for a moment of game time.

But when it comes to the bench, there may be a new leader in town (with apologies to Robinson) — and that's Saunders, the newly married, headband-wearing returned missionary from Seattle, Washington who also set up a duck-feeding business at Gardner Village.

"That guy works super hard, taking care of his body, working his studies, on the court; it doesn't matter what it is," Robinson said. "I know I speak for everybody when I say I'm super appreciative of Richie Saunders."

Related topics