BYU men’s basketball: Jake Toolson’s play a positive in an otherwise disappointing loss

PROVO — BYU’s tough 76-71 loss to San Diego State on Saturday wasn’t without some positives, and the play of Jake Toolson was certainly one of them.

Relatively quiet during the Cougars’ opening win over Cal State Fullerton, the former Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year proved impactful during his team’s best moments. Overall, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard finished with 18 points on 7-13 shooting from the field while contributing four assists and a couple of steals.

It was the type of play anticipated from the Gilbert, Arizona product when he elected to transfer back to BYU for his senior season after starring for Utah Valley over the past two years. When asked to review Toolson’s play, BYU coach Mark Pope lit up during his postgame press conference after giving an otherwise dour review of his team’s performance.

“I think Jake was awesome,” Pope said. “His intensity was great and his competitiveness was beautiful.”

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Toolson started off slow, scoring four points in the first half over his 13 minutes of play while hitting on just one of his four attempts. Not so coincidentally, BYU’s offense didn’t show at its best either during the first half of play, managing just 29 points on 8-22 shooting while falling behind 36-29.

All of it changed during the first part of the second half.

A big 21-3 run during the opening minutes of the second half saw Toolson start to contribute heavily, making true on a 3-point attempt while showing off his effective midrange game and contributing good ball movement.

But as far as Toolson was concerned, it was just being in a good flow with the rest of the team.

“I feel like every time I’m out there that I want to be aggressive and help our team,” Toolson said. “We had a nice little rhythm going and I got some good looks at the rim, and that’s how all of us feel. We’re all making plays for each other...I feel that little run we went on — we were all feeling that way.”

Regardless of the positives taken from Toolson’s outing, or any other positives for that matter, Pope was quick to point out none of it was ultimately good enough since they took a loss at home. And, of course, Toolson’s game wasn’t perfect with Pope pointing out what type of strides he’d like to see in the coming games.

“He has parts of his game that he needs to grow. He needs to grow (rebounding the ball),” Pope said, referring to Toolson’s four rebounds not being enough to overcome BYU’s most glaring discrepancy on the stat sheet, where it was outrebounded 43-27. “We’re going to need him to continue to grow his game and he will. I’ve been with him for a long time and he rises to the occasion.”

Should Toolson realize any type of improvement mirroring what he showed in his two years playing under Pope at UVU, it should benefit this Cougar team considerably.