Complacency the enemy as red-hot BYU hosts struggling LMU Thursday night

Provo • BYU coach Dave Rose announced Wednesday that two post players — sophomore Ryan Andrus and junior Braiden Shaw — will not play the remainder of the 2017-18 college basketball season due to injuries.

But the biggest challenge the Cougars face this week, Rose said, is complacency.

Having walloped Pepperdine and Santa Clara last week by a combined 54 points, the Cougars are playing some of their best basketball of the season, at least in the last three halves. They are at home this week against Loyola Marymount on Thursday (9 p.m. MT) and San Diego on Saturday (7 p.m. MT) but can’t afford to ease up, Rose stressed to his team after practice on Wednesday.

“I think the thing that you really guard against, when you get a game that gets away like [the 84-50 win], you anticipate going into the next game being up 24, 25 points. That’s not the case.”

Tied for third in the West Coast Conference with San Diego and Pacific, the Cougars (15-4, 4-2 WCC) have to hold serve to keep pace with league leaders Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, who tangle Thursday night in Spokane, Wash.

LMU is 1-5 in league play, 6-11 overall, and has lost seven of its last eight games. But the Lions beat a good San Francisco team 67-65 on Thursday and almost knocked off San Diego on Saturday before falling 75-71 at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

“Each game [demands] its own preparation,” Rose said. “Each game has its own scouting report. Each game has its own matchups, back and forth. … Hopefully you turn the page, and now you are on a new set of pages for this weekend, and you are starting over. That’s what we need to make sure we do — go through the process with the same focus, our own focus individually and teamwise.”

Junior guard Elijah Bryant said it falls on his shoulders as a team captain to make sure his teammates don’t take LMU for granted because of its record.

“It is a mindset of getting back to practice and doing what we do,” Bryant said. “We know what we can do when we are all together, and what we can’t do when we are not connected. As a captain obviously I have to keep the mindset of the guys on the positive side.”

Now down four scholarship players — until Dalton Nixon returns from a foot injury within a week or two — the Cougars could be tested by LMU’s size. The Lions start 7-foot-3 Mattias Markusson and bring 6-11 Petr Herman off the bench.

However, their newest players have been carrying the scoring load, Rose said, most notably former junior college All-American James Batemon (17.5 ppg.) of Milwaukee and freshman Eli Scott (13.1 ppg.) of Chino Hills, Calif.

“We have to stay focused, stay hungry, and know that we are capable of a lot more than we have shown,” said BYU forward Payton Dastrup. “We are starting to put the pieces together and hopefully we can showcase that throughout January and February and into March.”

Rose said Shaw and Andrus are both candidates to redshirt, which in Shaw’s case would take a medical hardship waiver from the NCAA because he has played in one game this season. Rose said not having either player in practice has been almost as difficult as not having them in games, because they’ve had to use practice squad guys a lot more than usual to give the regulars competition in practice.

As for Nixon, Rose said the 6-7 sophomore could play a few minutes this week but really hopes he can play a lot next week.

“He is on kind of a protocol and today was the first day he got up and down [the court],” Rose said. “Now we will see how he feels tomorrow. That will determine what he does tomorrow night and build up to what’s next.”

Rose said they still plan to redshirt freshman Kolby Lee, who joined the team in December, “but he is an eligible player. If [playing him] is what we need to do, we can.”