Coming back from the dead - well, from El Paso and Albuquerque - the BYU basketball team has reverted to its winning ways just in time to stay in contention for the WAC title and get serious about sewing up an NCAA tournament berth.
Thursday night's 75-64 win over Wyoming not only keeps the Cougars a half-game ahead of UTEP in the WAC race - BYU is 10-4, UTEP 9-4 - but it snapped a three-game losing streak and gave them their 20th win of the season, alongside six losses.Since 20 wins has always been an unofficial qualifying mark for entrance into the NCAAs, that number is significant. And since BYU has one more home game on its schedule - today at 1 p.m. against the Air Force Academy - an even more comfortable 21st win is a strong possibility.
"I guess a lot of people say the magic number is 20, but, really, that's not safe. We've got to keep going," said Cougar guard Marty Haws, who had 18 points and five assists in the Wyoming win. "There are no guarantees."
After today's game, only a road game at Colorado State remains for BYU in the regular season. Then it's on to the WAC NCAA-qualifying tournament in El Paso, where it figures that the regular season WAC champion will, as the No. 1 seed, be in an envied position.
That's because the top seed will open against either San Diego State or Air Force - the only two teams in the league with losing records. The No. 2 seed, on the other hand, will have to open against either Wyoming, New Mexico or Utah - whichever one decides to finish seventh - and that won't be easy. All three are having respectable seasons, especially in the second half, and Utah and New Mexico own wins over BYU.
The English translation of the above, as it applies to BYU: Get to El Paso as the champion and you've got an excellent chance to win at least one game, which, in the Cougars' case, ought to be plenty for entrance into the national championship tournament.
So you can appreciate the joy that permeated the Cougars' locker room Thursday night after they staved off a Wyoming lead - the Cowboys led 47-43 early in the second half before deciding to go seven minutes without scoring another point - and chalked up the win that put them at 20 and kept them in the conference lead.
And ended their three-game losing streak that kept them wondering for nearly two weeks if No. 20 would ever come.
"I know I got tired of writing `20' on the board," said Coach Roger Reid. "It was a long time coming. I'm just glad it got here."
The coach then went on to talk about the danger of playing a 9-17 Air Force team today, a team with nothing to lose.
Still, the game is in the Marriott Center. And nobody's been any better at home this year than the Cougars. Not George Bush. Not the Oklahoma Sooners. Not even the Utah Jazz. Not Anybody. They're 14-0 to date. The home town fans haven't seen them do anything but win.
Naturally, these fans have gotten loud, boisterous and exuberant in the process - a not insignificant factor in the 14-game winning streak.
In Thursday night's game, for instance, freshman forward Mark Durrant stole a Wyoming pass and drove the length of the floor for a lay-in.
Wyoming was down by one point, 48-47, at the time of Durrant's steal, so it was a timely one. The crowd roared its approval with a high enough decibel level it could be heard in Wyoming. By the time the visiting Cowboys had regained their hearing four minutes later they were behind 55-47.
"The way we play has got to be good for spectators," said Haws, trying to figure the profound homecourt enthusiasm. "Watching a bunch of guys play their guts out."
Even after the 20th win of the season, the subject of BYU's precociousness was again brought up. As Reid said, "We're underdogs every time we play. For this team to get 20, that's something."
But that line may be getting a little old - especially to teams like Wyoming, that have fallen twice to the Cougars, there and here.
Whether they were supposed to or not, the '89-90 BYU Cougars have somehow, some way, won 20 games. Add another one today, and maybe one more somewhere down the line for insurance, and they're NCAA-bound.