Saved by the bell.
We have all seen it. A boxer is on the ropes, but before they sustain a final blow, the bell rings to end the round. Both fighters are sent to their corners for a rejuvenating one-minute break.
The bell is a discombobulated fighter’s best friend.
It’s amazing what those 60 seconds can do for a combatant who just needs to catch his or her breath and regroup. With oxygen back in their lungs, they return to the battle with a burst of energy and a determination to keep going.
A metaphoric bell may have saved BYU’s basketball season.
Consecutive shots to the body by No. 1 Arizona, No. 14 Kansas, Oklahoma State and No. 8 Houston had the Cougars gasping for air and with the weight of lofty expectations gravitating toward the canvas, a knockout seemed imminent.
BYU needed oxygen and a moment to regroup. Baylor and Colorado provided both. After a 99-94 win over the Bears and a 90-86 overtime victory against the Buffaloes, the resilient No. 23 Cougars will resume sparring with the Big 12 heavyweights, starting at No. 4 Arizona on Wednesday (7 p.m. MST, ESPN) and No. 6 Iowa State at home on Saturday night (8:30 p.m. MST, ESPN).
Shooting well, rebounding and limiting turnovers are the obvious keys to success, but none are more important than breathing. Maybe that’s why opposing teams work so hard to make it so difficult.
A good team like Houston is heralded as having a “suffocating defense.” A squad with a strong half-court offense, like Arizona or Iowa State, gets credited for “taking the air out of the ball.”
Who knew basketball was just a 40-minute squabble over oxygen?
Medical journals describe the symptoms for a person with low oxygen as lightheadedness, rapid breathing, accelerated heart rate and fatigue. For basketball in the Big 12, that translates to poor decision making, rushing shots at the rim, panic and running out of gas — all noticeable ailments during BYU’s four-game skid.
None of those low-oxygen symptoms showed up boldly enough to impair the Cougars against Baylor and Colorado, even with the injury to Richie Saunders. The games were anything but cake walks, but BYU kept its composure. AJ Dybantsa and Rob Wright combined to score 66 points in Waco and 59 points against the Buffaloes in Provo.
The good thing about oxygen is you can find it just about anywhere. For the Cougars, it can come as quick as a steal by Wright, a Kennard Davis 3-point shot, a Dybantsa dunk, or even a timely technical foul on the head coach. Spanish opera star Plácido Domingo got his from the venue — “The atmosphere of the theater is my oxygen.”
Breathing is pretty basic, yet all-encompassing. It’s the first thing we do at birth and it’s the last thing we do before we die. But when the pressure of life gets turned up, we sometimes forget to do it, and that can impact everything. Reminders are helpful. That’s what timeouts are for, both in a game and in between rounds of a fight.
Losing Saunders makes things more difficult, but until BYU runs out of games to play, the fights will continue and the ingredients for success remain the same.
History is full of highlights of boxers once on the ropes who come back to win. BYU has its own storied comebacks, including earlier this season when the Cougars erased a 22-point deficit to stun Clemson on Wright’s buzzer-beater that sent a jolt of pure oxygen throughout Madison Square Garden.
For a fighter or a team in trouble, there is no shame in getting saved by the bell so long as you can catch your breath and be ready to respond when the next round begins. BYU’s next round is Wednesday in Tucson.
The game plan: Inhale. Exhale. Fight like crazy. Repeat.
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.