Bye comes at a good time for the Cougars

An eight-day break in the middle of the season can be a blessing or a curse. For the BYU Cougars, I think its’ going to be a good thing. Coach Dave Rose has mentioned several times the need for the Cougars to work on a few specific issues. Playing Tuesday, and then not having another game until Colorado State comes to town this Wednesday gives the Cougars plenty of time to work on some deficiencies.
“If you look at where our team is, we can use the time to kind of heal up and focus on some issues that we have,” Rose said.
The Cougars practiced Thursday and Friday, plan to do conditioning and lift and do some skilled development on Saturday, then practice with the normal routine on Monday and Tuesday.
“It’s really kind of up to the players to come to practice with a little edge to them, even though there’s not a game around the corner. There are so many things we need to get better at,” Rose said.
The Cougars will work on one thing at a time. On Thursday, they gave extra attention to defending every kind of screen they expect to see over the next few weeks.
“Those are good repetition things that we haven’t been able to do for a while,” Rose said.
When asked if the Cougars need to win out to win the regular season conference title, Rose said “Right now I do. A week from now I might tell you something different . . . hopefully we can get on a roll.”
The key, he said, is staying in the present and not looking ahead to any game but the next one on the schedule.
“Too many things change so quickly that you just worry about today and today’s challenges, and hopefully the rest will take care of itself.”
The bumps, bruises, cuts and breaks:
Center Chris Miles looked like a battered man in Thursday’s practice with a bandage above his left eye and a head wrap holding the patch in place. Miles lost his balance on a dunk and fell awkwardly to the floor, causing a deep cut above the eye. Bleeding profusely Miles was taken off the court, bandaged up and then resumed his work. Following practice he went to the doctor’s office for stitches. My bet is he’s not too worried about the cut, or the hard fall, but just thankful it didn’t happened during a road game where he certainly would have heard plenty from the opposing team’s fans.
The stress injury to Gavin MacGregor’s right foot is not healing as hoped, and team doctors plan an X-ray for a better determination on his status – but it’s not looking hopeful at this point for MacGregor to return any time soon.
Freshman Matt Pinegar is still awaiting further evaluation on his sports-related hernia.
On the bright side, Jackson Emery’s left shoulder pain seems to be going away and it clearly did not bother him much in Tuesday’s game at Air Force.
On when Jonathan Tavernari’s gag order will be lifted, which came as a result of Tavernari breaking team rules regarding comments made to the media (saying Wake Forest played no defense), Rose said that’s under daily evaluation. “We’ll probably decide what we’ll do with him for the second half of the year in a day or two.”