‘Our best basketball is ahead of us’: BYU turns page on Kansas win, hosts senior-laden TCU Saturday

One of the beauties of the Big 12 men’s basketball race this year is that most of the teams are so evenly matched that there really aren’t trap games, or opportunities to let the guard down.

As BYU senior guard Spencer Johnson said Thursday, “Anybody can beat anybody in this league.”

That’s why BYU coach Mark Pope isn’t that concerned about a letdown from his team after the Cougars upset No. 7 Kansas 76-68 in Lawrence on Tuesday. BYU’s coaches and players genuinely believe Saturday’s opponent at the Marriott Center, senior-laden TCU, is just as formidable as the Jayhawks.

The Horned Frogs (8-7, 19-9) are tied with BYU (8-7, 20-8) for fifth place in the Big 12 standings, have a similar record and have been in the top 25 most of the season.

“I mean, this TCU team is incredible, actually. They are so good. It is not surprising. It is humbling,” Pope said. “We got an unbelievable TCU team coming here in a crucial moment. And then we are going to the No. 8 team in the country (Iowa State). It is just never-ending.”

Coach Jamie Dixon’s squad features eight seniors, most notably Emanuel Miller, a 6-foot-7 forward who was teammates with BYU’s Jaxson Robinson at Texas A&M in 2020-21. Miller averages 15.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, while fellow seniors Micah Peavy (11.2) and Jameer Nelson Jr. (10.9) also average in double figures.

Pope said he doesn’t want his players to completely forget their rousing win over Kansas — arguably the biggest win in his five-year tenure at BYU — but he also doesn’t want them to dwell on it so much that they forget TCU could easily do to them what they did to the Jayhawks.

“We have talked about this a lot: We are trying to take all of this along with us, right?” Pope said. “I don’t want them to shut down their experience. I want them to kinda put it in their pocket and take it with them and hopefully we can keep getting hungrier and hungrier and more urgent and better and better. That would be ideal.”

Johnson, who became a father for the first time last week with the birth of his son, Joey, said the win over KU only left the team wanting more.

“We are still hungry. I actually thinks it affects motivation in a good way, because … there are only a couple dudes on our team that have gone to the (NCAA) tournament. So the fact that we get to go there (if they keep winning) and it is historic and legendary, we are motivated to actually make something happen there.”

Johnson is one of three seniors on BYU’s roster, but the only player who is out of eligibility at season’s end. Noah Waterman and Robinson have another year, if they want it. Both have said they will make the decision after the season is over.

It is all part of what Pope says is an emphasis on staying in the moment and relishing every step of this journey, a journey that was not predicted for the Cougars, picked to finish 13th in the Big 12.

“I think our best basketball is ahead of us. I hope so. Realistically, everybody’s best basketball is ahead of them. It is just a matter of, are we determined enough?” Pope said. “… I think we have the potential to continue to be way better. I think our ceiling is higher.”

Incredibly, the Cougars are still alive for a top-four seed in the conference tournament, a seed that would give them a double-bye into Thursday’s quarterfinals. Indeed, these are heady times in Provo, but memories of losses to Cincinnati and at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Kansas State still linger.

All four of those teams are below BYU in the league standings.

“TCU is a really good team,” Johnson said. “You just can’t get complacent. Anybody can beat anybody. And they have beat some really good teams. So we gotta pay attention to our scout, and just stay hungry. Because we have a lot left to play for.”

BYU has won four straight home games. The Cougars haven’t won five straight conference home games since 2019-20, Pope’s first season at the helm, when they went 8-0 in Provo and beat No. 2 Gonzaga.

This iteration of TCU is new to BYU, but the program itself is not. BYU and TCU were in the Western Athletic and Mountain West conferences together and BYU is 19-3 all-time against the team from Fort Worth.

BYU has defeated TCU 16 straight times, dating back to 2011.

BYU is No. 10 in the NET rankings, but is seen as a potential No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the Big Dance. It is a long way from those days in the WCC when a couple losses meant it would have to win the conference tournament to make the NCAA Tournament.

But Johnson and Pope said there’s no time to dwell on some of those bitter memories at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

“Right now we are just thinking about TCU. It is not coachspeak. It is not cliche,” Pope said. “Like, we don’t want to miss the moment, right? This is too good. It is just too good. Come what may, whether it is great or whether it is terrible, like, we do not want to miss this moment. I think that is how our team feels.”