CINCINNATI — Coach Kevin Young’s BYU basketball team is in a tailspin right now, losing three straight games and nine of its last 13 to tumble down the Big 12 standings and into a first-round conference tournament game next week in Kansas City, regardless of what happens Saturday against No. 10 Texas Tech at the Marriott Center.
After unranked and reeling BYU was thoroughly thrashed 90-68 by a much-improved Cincinnati team late Tuesday night at Fifth Third Arena in front of more than 12,000 jubilant fans and a national television audience, Young said the antidote to BYU’s current situation is quite simple.
In addition to playing harder, better and with more effort, Young said his injury-depleted squad needs to regain the confidence that carried it to a 16-1 start overall and 4-0 start in Big 12 play.
“I think our confidence is a little bit shook right now as a group,” Young said. “I just want our guys to play with more belief, more inner belief, more belief in themselves, belief in each other.”
Young said that when things are going well in sports, players and coaches feel like they are on top of the world. When they are not, “it feels like the world is caving in,” Young said.
Obviously, the Cougars’ late-season collapse has affected confidence, and some have questioned if the will to win and the effort are there after star forward Richie Saunders sustained a season-ending knee injury against Colorado.
The Cougars (20-10, 8-9) were slipping before Saunders’ injury — but they were mostly competitive in the 84-71 loss to then-No. 15 Texas Tech in Lubbock, the 90-82 loss to then-No. 14 Kansas in Lawrence, among other games. Their weaknesses, and utter lack of defense in some cases, were really exposed in the 99-92 loss at Oklahoma State on Feb. 4.
But Tuesday night in Cincinnati was BYU’s worst loss of the year, in terms of effort and margin of defeat.
“You have to be able to manage that, and that’s part of going through a season, especially one that’s filled with adversity, like the one we’ve had this year,” Young said. “I just want our guys to continue to believe in each other and believe in themselves.”
Saturday’s home finale against Texas Tech (8:30 p.m. MST, ESPN) would be a good place to start. The Red Raiders (22-8, 12-5) were upset 73-65 by TCU in their home finale Tuesday and are also playing into March without their best player, injured senior JT Toppin.
Still, coach Grant McCasland’s crew had beaten Kansas State, Cincinnati and No. 4 Iowa State in Ames without Toppin and before the TCU loss, and is still widely viewed as one of the Big 12’s best teams.
After struggling against Cincinnati, BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa said it is not too late to turn the ship around and make some noise in March. Dybantsa was 7 of 21 from the field, 1 of 8 from 3-point range and 8 of 11 from the free-throw line en route to 23 points. He had six rebounds and six assists, but also committed five turnovers in 37 minutes.
“You have to be able to manage that, and that’s part of going through a season, especially one that’s filled with adversity, like the one we’ve had this year. I just want our guys to continue to believe in each other and believe in themselves.”
— BYU coach Kevin Young
Asked by the Deseret News after the Cincinnati debacle what his message to fans who are wondering if this team has the moxie and determination to finish strong, Dybantsa said the following:
“I mean, we do. We believe in ourselves, like KY said, we beat a really good team (Iowa State) less than two weeks ago. I mean, we let two, or we let multiple (games) slip away, but we can still finish the season out strong and finish the Big 12 tournament out strong and make a March run.”
If there was a positive development from the disastrous Eastern road trip, it was that freshman guard Aleksej Kostic found his shooting stroke and started to give the Cougars a third scoring option behind Dybantsa and point guard Rob Wright III.
Kostic was 4 of 8 from deep in the 79-71 loss to West Virginia and 4 of 7 from 3-point range against the Bearcats. The Austrian has reached double figures in three straight games.
“I just always believe in myself, believe in my work, and (am) just like trying to step up into a bigger role since we lost so many players, and also trying to use the opportunity coach gave me,” Kostic said Tuesday night.
Dybantsa said Kostic “shoots lights out” in practice and it is nice to see that carry over into games.
“Y’all been seeing it for the past couple games,” Dybantsa said. “When Richie got injured, (Kostic) has stepped up into a bigger role.”
Dybantsa also said that Washington transfer Dominique Diomande has brought good energy to the team since arriving last summer, and showed what he could do by grabbing five rebounds in 13 minutes.
