BYU basketball returns home looking to right ship against struggling Pepperdine


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PROVO — Call it momentum, good luck or karma, but whatever it was, the BYU men’s basketball team created a lot of it during a nine-game win streak that opened West Coast Conference play.

In a matter of a week, that seems to be gone.

The Cougars (13-4, 2-2 WCC) return home at 7 p.m. MST Thursday night to face struggling Pepperdine (3-13, 0-4), having lost two of their last three games — including a dramatic 67-66 setback at Pacific in Stockton, California.

But that’s how conference play works sometimes.

“League play is different — I don’t care what league you are in,” said BYU associate head coach Heath Schroyer, who has coached from the Mountain West to the Atlantic Coast conferences. “You get more time to prepare, but so does your opponent. There are back-to-back road games to worry about. They aren’t excuses, but they are things that we’ve got to get better at. I think we will.”

Having a short memory, then, is key to bouncing back from bad losses — even ones that sting like Saturday’s loss to the Tigers.

Keep shooting, as the old saying goes, which was reiterated by BYU wing Zac Seljaas.

The sophomore who recently returned from an LDS Church mission had opportunities to win both games the Cougars lost in the past week. The Bountiful native’s open 3-point attempt to end regulation didn’t fall against Saint Mary’s, and his bucket against Pacific did — but a split-second after the final buzzer.

Keep shooting, even in those circumstances.

Photo: Ravell Call, Deseret News
Photo: Ravell Call, Deseret News

“When you’re in the middle of a game, you don’t really think about past games,” said Seljaas, who averages 6.1 points and 1.9 rebounds off the bench for the Cougars. “You just think about what is going on at the moment.”

Four games into conference play is not the time to panic, added Schroyer — both collectively and individually.

“You can’t just throw everything out,” he said. “What we do has been pretty sound, and I think you have to do it really well. The slippage you can often get away with in the preseason; in league play, you can’t.”

Saturday’s loss is a reminder that BYU still has work to do to compete with the best in the West Coast Conference. The good feelings, positive press and aura of invulnerability that surrounded the streaking Cougars to end non-conference play — feelings that came with big wins over in-state rivals Utah, Utah State and Utah Valley, among others — are gone.

“Sometimes you start winning games, and it happens,” BYU guard TJ Haws said. “This team has been good this year at learning and improving on things we didn’t do so well, so I think this could be a good thing for this team.”

The Cougars will look to rebound against a Pepperdine squad that, on paper, is remarkably similar to Pacific.

The Waves average 72.2 points per game — just two fewer than BYU — and pound teams on the glass with a plus-4.3 rebounding margin. With no player that measures above 6-foot-7 in the starting lineup, Pepperdine doesn’t beat anyone with size, either.

“They have physical perimeter players, strong and athletic guards, big and physical posts,” Schroyer said.

The other streak

The Waves enter Thursday night having won just one of their past 10 games, including a five-game losing streak after Saturday’s 80-67 blowout by San Francisco.

But Schroyer hopes that record doesn’t get into his players’ heads.

“Make no mistake, Pepperdine is a good basketball team,” the coach said. “They’ve had a lot of injuries, but Marty has done a heck of a job. They play really hard.”

Killin’ it

If you hear the word “kill” around the BYU basketball team this year, it isn’t a throwback to the Cougars’ volleyball squad.

Schroyer brought the team with him in his second stint at BYU, referring to three-straight defensive stops. The commitment to defense has paid off for the Cougars in many ways — but it’s also proven to be something of a harbinger of ill fortune as well. That’s why the players have taken it upon themselves to add to the hyper-specific stat that is tracked every game by director of basketball operations Andrew May.

“We put a lot of stock into it. At Pacific, we had two kills — and that’s the very first thing we talked about on Monday,” Schroyer said.

“You go down the line, look at the stats, and the games outside of Saint Mary’s when we had five, we’ve had one or two. It’s a huge measurement, in my opinion.”

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