PROVO — As disappointing as it was for BYU to squander a nine-point, second-half lead in a 76-71 home loss to San Diego State last Saturday, first-year coach Mark Pope is using that disappointment as a learning experience for his team.
The Cougars (1-1) played almost flawlessly during a five-minute span that resulted in a 21-3 run early in the second half before suffering some offensive and defensive breakdowns late in the game.
Pope wants to see more of the team that knocked down four 3-pointers and played tough defense during that stretch that allowed BYU to go ahead 52-43 with 13:45 remaining.
“We know what we have to be as a team right now. It’s just a question of how long it will take us to believe it. We have to be a team that plays with pace and has ball movement and we trust the simple play really quickly over and over again. That’s who we want to be,” Pope said. “Now, the real question for these guys is, how are they going to respond? Are we going to learn from this? Are we going to start to believe? Are we going to start to grow an identity?”
The undersized Cougars were out-rebounded 43-27 by the Aztecs, who hit 9 of 20 3-point attempts. BYU went 8 of 24 from deep.
“This is an opportunity for us to get better so we can grow from this. It’s going to help us. We have to have that mindset because we’re all about getting better and growing from these tough losses. It’s not going to keep us down. We’re going to keep fighting. That’s what this team is about.” — BYU senior guard Jake Toolson
“This is an opportunity for us to get better so we can grow from this. It’s going to help us,” said senior guard Jake Toolson, who scored a team-high 18 points. “We have to have that mindset because we’re all about getting better and growing from these tough losses. It’s not going to keep us down. We’re going to keep fighting. That’s what this team is about.”
BYU will have a chance to show improvement Wednesday (7 p.m., MST, BYUtv) when it hosts Southern Utah.
“When we have that pace offensively and we have baskets going in, it gets the energy going on defense,” said senior Zac Seljaas, who scored eight points during that 21-3 run. “And it’s us being able to get stops and rebounds. We’ve got to keep going with that and keep fighting defensively. We learned that we have the fight in us. We can come out and go through adversity and be able to fight together as a team. We’ve got to learn from this game and get better every day.”
Pope took the blame for the loss, explaining that he needs to improve when it comes to coaching his team.
“A coach’s job is not to tell his players what to do,” he said. “A coach’s job is to put it inside them so it becomes a part of them. That I failed to do, and I’ll do a better job.”
Sophomore forward Kolby Lee was 1 of 5 from the field and had just one rebound against SDSU. But Pope has high expectations for Lee.
“Kolby’s good. He’s got to get more than one rebound and he knows it. Listen, Kolby’s been thrown into the fire. It’s not fair. He’s my only guy over 6-foot-6,” Pope said. “He’s like a lone man out there. But Kolby Lee is going to become a big-time player. You mark my words. He’s getting better every single day. I’m excited for him about the experience he had (against San Diego State). That helps us learn and grow. That’s what we have to do this season. That’s going to be the marker of this team. We have to get better every day.”