Following a heart-breaking loss to St. Mary’s, the BYU men’s basketball team looks to bounce back against the San Diego Toreros on Saturday night.
“I think our guys are disappointed, but they should be because they played hard, they played well and we actually played well enough to win,” Coach Rose said before Friday’s practice. “But by the end of practice (on Thursday), by the time we got out, they were excited, looking forward to the next game and moving on. You look for a silver lining in this and one is the fact that it wasn’t on a by-week. We get to play on Saturday.”
Despite the tough loss to SMU, Rose found things he was proud of after watching the film against the Gaels.
“Things we did really well was, we competed,” Rose said. “We found ways to keep ourselves in the game when we weren’t playing our very best. Late in the game, we executed the plays, scored the ball and had a chance to win.”
Tyler Haws continues his strong play after being named the WCC player of the week for the second time and has also scored 20-plus points in six consecutive games. Matt Carlino has scored in double digits since conference started and is averaging 17.0 points on 46.9 percent shooting, 5.0 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.8 steals.
Although Brandon Davies has not been himself in recent games, Rose looks to see Davies break out faster than later.
“I think he’s getting a lot of attention from opposing teams,” Rose said. “I think physically, he feels good and I look for Brandon to break out pretty quick and the sooner the better for us.”
BYU now has a 14-5 overall record and a 4-1 record in the WCC while San Diego will come in with a 11-8 overall record and a perfect 4-0 in conference play.
The Cougars lead the series record 5-0 against the Toreros coming in Saturday and also looks to give Coach Rose his 200th career win.
BYU will take on San Diego at the Marriott Center at 7:00 p.m. MST on Saturday night. There will be a live broadcast on BYUtv.
