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PROVO — Less than two days after BYU men's basketball stunned Kansas on the road, Spencer Johnson sat in front of a microphone before the Cougars assembled at the Marriott Center Annex for practice.
It came after BYU handed the seventh-ranked Jayhawks their first loss at Allen Fieldhouse in 19 games, and around 36 hours after a crowd of more than 200 students and fans greeted the Cougars' return at the Provo Airport at 2:30 a.m.
The new father whose infant son, Joey, has been keeping him up plenty of nights in the days since his wife, Issy, delivered the couple's first child had yet to dive deep on scouting TCU before Saturday's sold-out game at the Marriott Center (7 p.m. MST, ESPN+).
But in the two nights since that win in Lawrence — and in between naps for baby Joey — Johnson has barely allowed himself time to think about what BYU did to the historic basketball brand that is Bill Self's Jayhawks.
"You can enjoy it on the plane, but when you get home and go to bed, you turn your phone off. It was going pretty crazy for a while," Johnson said. "TCU is a really good team. … You just can't get complacent. Anybody can beat anybody (in the Big 12), and they've beat some really good teams. We've got to pay attention to our scout, and stay hungry because we've got a lot left to play for."
The Cougars' first season in the Big 12 has been nothing short of a demonstrable success, with the handful of skeptics of BYU's NCAA Tournament worthiness vanishing after clinching the 20th win of the season and a fifth Quad 1 victory in Lawrence.
The Cougars currently rank 15th in KenPom and No. 10 in the NET rankings, with a 9-3 mark in Quad 1 and 2 games and an unblemished 11-0 stretch in the last two quadrants. ESPN's Joe Lunardi projects them as a No. 7 seed in the East regional, while CBS Sports' Jerry Palm has BYU as a No. 6 seed in Salt Lake City.
It hasn't been a perfect season — losses at league-low Oklahoma State and Kansas State stand out, as well as a dubious road loss to Utah that hasn't aged particularly well as the bubble-laden Runnin' Utes fight for their postseason lives. But it's been a ride, and everything the senior and licensed real estate agent could have imagined.
Not that they're done yet.
"It's been incredible," said Johnson, the 6-foot-5 senior from American Fork who averages 10.5 points on 41.3% shooting with 5.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. "For me, my senior year, to go out like this in the Big 12 is pretty special. I think we have put ourselves in a good position, won a lot of games, and made some really good memories along the way. But the cool part is that we still have a couple of games left, it's not over, and we'll go make some more memories."
Still, the Cougars can't afford to take any team lightly — refer, again, to that 93-83 loss at Gallagher-Iba Arena or the 84-74 loss in Manhattan just 14 days after a 6-point home win over the same Wildcats. Instead, they're just trying to enjoy the ride.
"I think our best basketball is ahead of us; I hope so," BYU coach Mark Pope said. "Realistically, everybody's best basketball is ahead of them. It's just a matter of you being determined and focused enough to actually go achieve it. I think we have the potential to continue to be way better. I think our ceiling is higher. But it's hard to get to your ceiling, and how intentional we're going to be and how focused we're going to be is the key to how we're going to get better."
College basketball in the Big 12 is all about moments, with every game being winnable and every game being loseable. A lot can change in the final three games of the regular season.
But that makes living in the moment more vital for BYU.
"We don't want to miss the moment. It's just too good," Pope added. "Come what may — whether it's great or it's terrible — we do not want to miss this moment. I think that's how our team feels, and I think we probably feel more like we wish this could be longer. If we win every game the rest of the season, we still only get six weeks or so, and it's over. But it's just too good right now.
"I think it helps us play better. … But right now today is too good to miss it. Hopefully we'll continue to play that way on the court, and I think our guys felt that at Kansas. This is too good to miss, and you can't think about what could happen or what might happen. Just be in this place, because this place is great."
