PROVO — For his first season at the helm, BYU basketball coach Mark Pope inherited a challenging nonconference schedule from his predecessor, Dave Rose.
What makes it even more challenging is that the Cougars will be shorthanded for the first nine games as senior forward Yoeli Childs is sidelined due to an NCAA suspension.
After BYU’s 76-58 win in the season opener against Cal State Fullerton last Tuesday, there are now eight games until Childs, who this week was named to the Preseason Top 50 Watch for the John Wooden Award, returns. He’ll be back for the Dec. 4 showdown at Utah.
Until then, Childs will be doing everything he can to help his team be successful, including being a formidable presence in practices.
“It’s going to be a challenge (without Childs and Baxter) but we’ll figure it out. We’ll definitely have to play differently.” — BYU guard TJ Haws
“I need to be the best teammate I can be. I’m going to be the greatest practice player that BYU has ever seen for nine games; I promise you that,” Childs said before the season started. “I’ll be going hard, making these guys better. I’ll be an extra coach on the sideline. I’ll get to see a lot of things I haven’t been able to see in my career … Intellectually, I’ll get to grow as a player. I have another month where I get to continue to work on my body and my game and not worry about being ready for game day. Come the time I can play, I’ll probably be even more ready than I would have been had I played.”
BYU will also be without another key big man, Gavin Baxter, who suffered a serious shoulder injury in September.
“It’s going to be a challenge (without Childs and Baxter) but we’ll figure it out. We’ll definitely have to play differently,” TJ Haws said. “Guys will really have to focus on rebounding, making sure that we’re helping the big guys. But there’s a lot of threats when you have a lot of good shooters on the floor as well. It’s going to be interesting to see how our strategy comes together and how we’re going to play. I know that we’ll figure it out and we’ll be good.”
Pope is confident that BYU will be able to adapt without Childs and Baxter.
“There are some things we’ll have to overcome, our diminutive size. Our lack of length, we’ll have to overcome,” Pope said. “But in terms of guys understanding where we want to be in positioning, what our schemes are, how we function and our basic core principles and developing habits where that’s familiar to them, I feel pretty good about where we are there.”
Highlighting BYU’s 15-game preseason schedule is a trip to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational later this month; a handful of games against Mountain West Conference foes; and several contests against in-state opponents.
The Cougars will take on UCLA in the first round of the Maui Invitational on Nov. 25 and if they win, they will likely face No. 3 Kansas in the second round. The other participating schools are Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Georgia, Dayton and Chaminade.
Before last Tuesday’s opening game against Cal State Fullerton, the Maui Jim Maui Invitational presented an eight-foot, handcrafted, custom-made surfboard to BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe to commemorate BYU’s fourth appearance in the prestigious tournament. The Cougars are 5-5 all-time in the Maui Invitational, with their most recent appearance coming in 2014.
Next up for BYU is a home game against former Mountain West rival San Diego State Saturday. The Cougars will also face Southern Utah, Houston (road), Boise State (road), Montana Tech, Utah (road), UNLV (at Vivint Arena), Nevada, Utah State (at Vivint Arena), Weber State and Oral Roberts.
Most of these games were scheduled by the previous coaching staff.
“It’s an unbelievable schedule. It’s awesome. It’s really hard but it’s great. If we do it right — there’s a lot of ‘if’ in there — we get Utah, Utah State, Weber State and Southern Utah and a whole host of in-state games and we get San Diego State and Nevada and UNLV,” Pope said. “If we do it right, we get UCLA, Kansas and Michigan State. Let’s go. That’s a pretty tough nonconference schedule. I’m also excited to have a couple of these games at home. That’s a gift that coach Rose left us.”
The players, of course, are looking forward to the games coming up.
“We’ve got a great schedule. I’m just excited for the opportunity to compete and see what we’ve got. Every game’s going to be different,” said senior guard Jake Toolson. “But we’re going to leave it all out there. If we can just have the mindset where we’re trying to get better every single day ... we can get better. This competition and this schedule is going to tell us a lot about ourselves. It’s going to be a lot of fun to see how we match up against these different, unique teams. I think we’re up for the challenge and whatever that brings, we’re going to make the most of it.”