INDIANAPOLIS — Before BYU traveled here to hunker down in the NCAA Tournament bubble, coach Mark Pope worried about how he and his staff would keep their players occupied and engaged as they were isolated individually in hotel rooms between practice sessions.
The Cougars arrived here Monday and it’s been quite the adventure already.
“We brainstormed a thousand different ideas we thought would be effective,” Pope said Friday. “As usual, the effective stuff is the stuff that happens organically.”
No team in the 68-team field has generated more social media moments — without playing a game — as BYU.
There was the video of the Cougars being introduced and hyped before receiving their COVID-19 tests at 9:30 Thursday night during the First Four.
“We’re the last team in the tournament to get tested. It’s been a long day. We had a hard practice and two film sessions. We go there and every other time we’ve tested, they just had us line up and you told them your name,” Pope explained. “For some reason last night, they were like, ‘We’re going to call you out.’ The lady who was running it, who was so terrific, she called out ‘Brandon Averette’ and the guys broke out in this spontaneous applause. It just grew from there. It was an organic moment.”
“Given our situation, we have to have some fun,” said guard Alex Barcello. “You saw that ... It’s a tribute to our success because we really love each other. It was funny seeing that blow up on social (media) last night.”
The other viral video featured guard Jesse Wade, who got stuck in an elevator for 30-40 minutes Wednesday.
“After dinner, I was like, ‘Where is Jesse Wade?’ At a table, Brandon Warr and a couple of other players are on FaceTime with Jesse. Turns out, he is trapped in the elevator,” Pope said. “I jumped on FaceTime. I thought it was hilarious. Understandably, Jesse was semi-concerned about his situation. It was, ‘We’ve got to get him out.’ We started banging on the elevator bays. We raced to floor 7 and started banging on the doors. We peeked through the crack of the middle elevator and we see Jesse in there.”
BYU players worked to pry the door open and Wade emerged, looking like a man that just made parole.
“It’s a pretty funny story,” Pope said.
Barcello said such organic moments happen because of the atmosphere, and the camaraderie, engendered by the coaches. Pope always preaches about having the Best Locker Room in America.
“That’s what our coaching staff tries to do with everything. That’s why they’re such great coaches, because they want us to have fun while getting better,” Barcello said. “We had some social media set into place but never did we think we’d have intros to COVID testing or Jesse getting stuck and us breaking the door open. That’s just who we are. We’re trying to have fun with everything and make the most of this situation. We’re trying to make this as memorable as we can because growing up, that’s all we did in March. If you were a basketball player, that’s all you were doing 24/7, watching games all day during March. … It’s such a fun experience and now we’re getting to live through it. We definitely want to make the most of it and enjoy it and go as far as we can.”
It’s already been a memorable tournament experience for BYU. But of course, as Pope stressed, winning will make it much more memorable. The Cougars take on UCLA Saturday (7:40 p.m. MDT, CBS) in the first round at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
“We try to listen for the sound of winning. We talk about it a lot. Those moments where it’s just stupid and kind of ridiculous but your guys are celebrating and loving each other,” Pope said. “Those are sounds of winning. That’s a result of these guys caring about each other and sacrificing for each other. That’s the bond that forms. Those are really proud moments as a coach. It sounds silly but these guys care about each other. Our job right now is to go win. That’s what we’re going to remember and that’s what’s going to make the difference. But the ingredients to having a team capable of winning are some of the experiences that we’ve had so far.”