LOS ANGELES — When BYU visited Loyola Marymount last February, it was mired in a four-game losing streak and the season was falling apart.
The Cougars desperately needed a victory and they got it — a dramatic 83-82 overtime win — after rallying from a 17-point, second-half deficit.
“In terms of the national conversation, we know we’re not in it right now, so our only focus is to get better and if we stay focused on that maybe we can get in it.” — BYU coach Mark Pope
That night also marked the first time in school history that BYU’s starting lineup featured four Black players — Fousseyni Traore, Gideon George, Te’Jon Lucas and Seneca Knight.
Also of note, BYU, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also started five players that are not members of the church for the first time in school history. The fifth starter was senior guard Alex Barcello.
The Cougars (12-5, 2-0) return to Gersten Pavilion, for what could be the final time, Thursday (9 p.m. MST, ESPNU) riding a seven-game winning streak and boasting a 2-0 record in West Coast Conference play.
Certainly, the Lions (11-5, 1-1) pose a threat to BYU’s recent success.
LMU is led by point guard Cam Shelton, who averages 18.3 points, 6 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game. Forward Keli Leaupepe averages 14.1 points and 6.9 boards per game.
“They’re a force to be reckoned with in this league right now,” said BYU coach Mark Pope. “They’re super veteran, incredibly physical, shooting the ball at a great clip, 38-plus percent from the 3-point line, they’re playing really hard and they’re really versatile. At the three and four, they’re playing guys that are collectively shooting 38% from 3 and they’re 6-foot-8, 250 pounds, who are beating guys off the bounce. Cam Shelton is a veteran point guard who has been through a lot and he’s playing at an elite level right now. They’re a good team.”
“They’re big; they’re physical. They have some dudes that have been there for a couple of years and know their system,” said Cougars guard Spencer Johnson. “They push it really hard in transition. We definitely have to rebound and take care of the ball. It’s going to be a good game.”
BYU’s winning streak began improbably in mid-December in Las Vegas, where the Cougars knocked off Creighton. The following week, BYU defeated Utah.
But this winning streak came on the heels of a losing streak — back-to-back setbacks to South Dakota and Utah Valley University.
“It was a super hard time because we had just lost Spencer (Johnson) and we don’t have a lot of veteran guys walking around anyway, so we had to figure it out altogether,” Pope said. “We just looked at each other collectively and said, ‘Let’s dig ourselves out of this together.’ The leading thing about that was these guys’ character. That’s where we found our leadership, was these guys innate character and leadership skills as a group.”
So how have the Cougars put together this winning streak?
“I sound like a broken record, but our guys want to get better. … We lost a lot of games early but the South Dakota and UVU games were really devastating games for us and after that, we had some heart-to-heart talks that were really honest,” Pope said. “That can be super dangerous for a team and I’ve never done it where we sat around and said to the guys, ‘We’re not very good right now.’ We thought and talked about it a lot as a staff, how we were going to approach it and finally we got to the point where we decided to be brutally honest. For a lot of locker rooms and teams, that could have destroyed them, but it didn’t destroy our team.
“It’s a huge credit to our guys because they’ve owned it,” he added. “We still have a long way to go to become a good team, but in the meantime they’ve come every day saying, ‘We know who we are and let’s get better.’”
While the Cougars still aren’t on the NCAA Tournament radar — they’re No. 93 in the latest NET rankings — they’ll take whatever they can get.
“The one thing we have started talking about nationally is that we are in the top 10 longest winning streaks in the country thanks to Purdue losing (Monday),” Pope said. “That’s something we’re talking about because it’s important and really constructive. In terms of the national conversation, we know we’re not in it right now, so our only focus is to get better and if we stay focused on that maybe we can get in it.”
Certainly, Pope is grateful to have Johnson back in the lineup. Johnson missed more than a month due to an injury before returning last Thursday in a win at Pacific, where Johnson scored 15 points.
“I was nervous about reinserting Spencer into the lineup because while he was out, we had to rediscover who we were,” Pope said. “We had gone on this journey of losing those two games without him and that was a major reason we lost those games because the one veteran presence we had was gone. I was nervous, but every time I put Spencer in the game, he ended up staying there.
“He is a special player that way because the things that I value a lot, that are stabilizing that make me leave guys on the floor, Spencer is the blueprint for that and he’s been really terrific.”
The Cougars could also see the return of guard Trevin Knell, who hasn’t played this season after undergoing shoulder surgery last summer.
Pope said Knell went through a full practice Tuesday.
“I am super excited about that. We’ll see how he feels (Wednesday),” he said. “It’s still something where we’re holding our breath because one hit the wrong way and he could be out again. We’re just going to wait and see.”
