PROVO — In August 2011, guards Nick Emery and T.J. Haws walked into BYU basketball coach Dave Rose’s office to commit to play for the Cougars.
Emery was entering his junior year at Lone Peak High and Haws was starting his sophomore campaign at Lone Peak. While it certainly was a recruiting coup for BYU to land both players, they were on the long-term plan.
Five years later, Emery and Haws will finally take the court together at BYU this season. Emery played as a freshman last year after an LDS mission and Haws, who left on his LDS mission right out of high school, returned last spring.
Add to the mix 6-foot-10 forward Eric Mika, who also helped lead Lone Peak to a national championship in 2013. Mika played for one season at BYU before leaving for a mission.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for five years now,” Haws said Thursday during Media Day.
They’re also reuniting with their high school coach, Quincy Lewis, who joined the staff as an assistant last year.
“That’s part of the excitement and hype of this group, is that there are a few players that we’ve waited to play together for a long time,” Rose said. “When you look at T.J. and Nick, when they came to my office and committed to us quite a few years ago, at that time we were recruiting other players in that class who have gone to their schools and graduated. Now, it’s our turn to get that class here to play together. It’s been a long wait. The core of that group is really good but we have great players around it that are going to make for a successful season.”
Haws, Emery and Mika say when they’re on the court together, they’ve picked up where they left off.
“It feels really similar to how it felt in high school. But I’m really excited to play with these other guys as well,” said Haws, the younger brother of BYU’s all-time leading scorer, Tyler Haws. “We did some good things at Lone Peak and I feel like we have that winning culture. This team is very skilled. Yes, there are a few of us from Lone Peak but we’re all Cougars now. We’re ready to do similar things that we did at Lone Peak.”
“To finally be here and playing at BYU, it’s surreal,” Emery said. “It’s good to have Eric and T.J. back. Our chemistry hasn’t skipped a beat. We’re still playing the same way as before.”
“Both Nick and T.J. definitely make me a better player. Any good guard does,” Mika said. “Being with them makes me happy because they make me look better than I really am. All our guards are good. There’s a good vibe going around the team because we got to know each other and we worked really hard all summer."
Haws and Mika are two of nine players who didn't play for the Cougars last season. Other newcomers are guards Elijah Bryant, L.J. Rose (a senior transfer), Zach Frampton (another Lone Peak product), Steven Beo and Colby Leifson; and forwards Payton Dastrup and Yoeli Childs (Utah 5A MVP at Bingham High).
Forward Kyle Davis and L.J. Rose are the only seniors on the roster. “This is probably the most skilled team I’ve ever been on,” Davis said.
The Cougars lost four key players from last year’s team — Kyle Collinsworth, Chase Fischer and Nate Austin to graduation and guard Zac Seljaas to an LDS mission. BYU posted a 26-11 record last season and reached the NIT semifinals.
“I’m really excited about this team,” Rose said. “When you hear that there’s nine new players on your roster, you know that we’ve got a lot of work to do. But this team has worked really hard.”
BYU will stage the annual Cougar Tipoff on Oct. 26 and will play its first exhibition game Oct. 29 at home against Seattle Pacific. BYU will officially tip off the season against Princeton on Nov. 14 as part of the ESPN College Tip-Off Marathon.
Rose said this team has “a really high ceiling as far as our potential is concerned … That’s what we want to do — win the regular-season championship and the (tournament) championship and get to the NCAA tournament and advance as far as we can.”
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