PROVO — It’s the biggest question mark surrounding the BYU basketball program right now.
Senior forward Yoeli Childs suffered an open dislocation of the index finger on his shooting hand in last Tuesday’s practice and is wearing a splint.
“He can bend his finger a little bit more. We’re still waiting for this wound to close … With these joints, infection is a huge concern. The closing of that wound is really important. Hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later.” — BYU coach Mark Pope, on Yoeli Childs’ injury
When will he return to action?
Without him last week, the Cougars lost 87-84 in overtime at Saint Mary’s but rebounded with a lopsided 96-70 triumph over Portland at home Saturday night.
BYU coach Mark Pope attended medical school for a couple of years but he’s the first to admit that he’s not a doctor.
“I don’t know,” Pope said when asked about the timetable of Childs’ return. “He can bend his finger a little bit more. We’re still waiting for this wound to close … With these joints, infection is a huge concern. The closing of that wound is really important. Hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, these guys are going to come battle like they have. We’ll have other roster issues as we go through this season. We just are. So right now, we’re focused on taking care of Yoeli’s heart and soul and then trying to get this team to keep winning.”
Before his injury, Childs was averaging 20.9 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.
The Cougars host San Diego Thursday and travel to No. 1 Gonzaga Saturday. After that, BYU visits Pacific (Jan. 23) and San Francisco (Jan. 25) and then it returns home for games against Pepperdine (Jan. 30) and Saint Mary’s (Feb. 1).
Of course, the Cougars are accustomed to not having Yoeli on the court because he was sidelined for the first nine games of the season due to an NCAA suspension. BYU posted a 6-3 record during that stretch, so it has proven it can win without him.
Against Portland, six players scored in double-figures, led by Zac Seljaas’ 21.
Meanwhile, guard TJ Haws recorded a career-high 14 assists to go along with zero turnovers. Guard Jake Toolson had eight assists and zero turnovers.
As a team, BYU dished out 29 assists on 37 made field goals, a stat that delighted Pope.
“On Thursday, we had our lowest assist opportunities number, which is really the marker we track more than assists,” Pope said. “We had only 20 as a team. (Saturday), we had 53 assist opportunities, which is our season high. That’s a team that’s really, really hard to guard when your top two scorers are 14-0 and 8-0 … There is a belief that we have to continue working on, that in the biggest moments, the way for us to be most successful is to make the simple play.”
Dalton Nixon, who registered his first career double-double (14 points, 11 rebounds) against Portland, said the Cougars’ offensive style creates passing lanes for Haws and Toolson.
“Offensively, we have to play with a lot of pace and a lot of force. Our cuts and our screens really open up those opportunities for Jake and TJ to have those assists. All night, everyone that was on the floor played together and that’s another huge key, being on the same page. We get the ball popping and it finds the open guys. That’s kind of our identity as a team offensively.”
Guard Connor Harding is sporting a large knee brace as he is dealing with an injury. That didn’t stop him from scoring six points, grabbing five rebounds and distributing three assists Saturday in 20 minutes of play.
“We’ve been trying to monitor him. I think this brace is helping. He’s got a little bit of a bone bruise in his knee. He said that he’s actually a little bit on the uptick,” Pope said of Harding. “It had been feeling worse and worse and worse for about three weeks. The last few days, he said it’s feeling a little better. I’m like 98 percent sure that he’s lying to me but I’m taking it. I hope he’s telling the truth. He’s a tough kid. He just wants to help the team.”