Jimmer Fredette played basketball on the attack. BYU’s 2011 National Player of the Year took the floor and acted as if he couldn’t be denied — and often he wasn’t. Fredette’s 2,599 points, 515 assists, 367 rebounds and 167 steals are career numbers that reflect his aggressive playing style. His wish for freshman Egor Demin is to do the same.
“I want to see him take the physicality to the defense. A lot of the guys in the Big 12 are small, but strong and quick. They get underneath you. It’s a different feel than playing in Europe,” Fredette told the “Y’s Guys” podcast this week. “I want to see him be aggressive. He has great height (6-9) and has a good frame. I want to see him get into his guys before they get into him, take their aggression and use it against them.”
Demin played on attack during the second half at Colorado and he stayed aggressive throughout Saturday’s game against Cincinnati, leading BYU to a pair of double-digit victories with help from veteran go-to-guy Richie Saunders. The Cougars host Baylor tonight (7 p.m. ESPN2) and Fredette expects the Bears to try and knock the 18-year-old off his game.
“I want him to get into them, be physical and then create separation and get off of it,” Fredette said. “When he gets off a ball screen, he is extremely hard to guard because he knows the reads. He knows when to pass it and when to shoot it. He’s looking more confident.”
Demin is projected to be the first NBA lottery pick from BYU since Fredette.
3s on seas
Fredette is still healing from a leg injury that knocked him out of the 3x3 competition at the Paris Olympics last summer, but it won’t keep him from shooting 3s on the high seas April 11-18 when BYU rolls out its maiden fan voyage Cruisin’ with the Cougs.
As part of the various activities, Fredette will teach shooting workshops on the deck of the ship while his wife, Whitney, a former BYU cheerleader, conducts a cheer clinic.
“We’ll see how it goes. I’ll teach everybody the B.E.E.F. — Balance, Eye, Elbow and Follow through. We’ll make sure they get the form,” Fredette said. “We’ll play some cutthroat and see what happens, but I’m not going to take it easy on anybody.”
Fredette has made 3-point shots on land all over the world, but never on a boat.
“We played close to the sea during 3x3 (competitions), but never on the sea,” he said, where the waves and wind will have to be considered. “That wind is something fierce. You have to shoot it 3 or 4 inches to the right and it kicks it back to the left. But of course, as soon as you shoot it, the wind stops and it airballs. It happens all the time.”
Exotic cuisine
During Fredette’s international career, he came across teams that were tough to beat and foods that were even tougher to eat.
“I’m not a picky eater,” said the All-American kid from Glens Falls, New York. “I eat pretty much anything you put in front of me, but there are some things that I was like, ‘You know what, I just can’t do it.’”
Fredette revealed on the “Y’s Guys” five exotic foods that he tried, and five other delights that demanded a hard pass.
Over the years, he ate red-bean desserts, a donkey burger (“They said it tasted like horse, but I had never tasted horse”), chicken feet soup, Durian (“a fruit with an unmistakable odor”) and cow tongue (“I didn’t know I was eating it!”).
What Fredette couldn’t stomach was boiled bullfrog (“It was literally a bullfrog sitting in a pan that is boiled!”), snake skins (“They ate them like Doritos”), live baby birds served in a bowl (“No way was I doing that!”), raw alligator sushi and the grossest of all — cow brain, which left an indelible mark.
“They would get these bags that looked like red goo,” Fredette said. “We would get on the train, and they would start eating cow brain. I couldn’t even look at it. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ They would say, ‘It’s delicious!’”
Fredette turned the table on his Chinese teammates when the group flew to Houston to play an exhibition game against the Rockets.
“We brought them to a Mexican food place, and I was (devouring) guacamole and they thought it was the most disgusting thing on the planet,” he said. “They said, ‘This green mush? What is this? It looks terrible!’ Everyone has their thing.”
The life of international basketball gave Fredette challenges on and off the court, but also lasting memories, including some that still turn his stomach, even years after retirement.
“My teammates were good to me most of the time, they say ‘You should try this, and you shouldn’t try this. We don’t want you to get sick,’” Fredette said. “They were pretty good.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.