For a minute last summer, the BYU men’s basketball roster consisted of three players.

Graduation, injuries and the transfer portal had pretty much gutted the 2021-22 Cougars, leaving sophomore guard Trey Stewart, sophomore forwards Fousseyni Traore and Atiki Ally Atiki and junior guards Spencer Johnson and Trevin Knell to represent the program. For various reasons, at one point the only active players were Stewart, Traore and Ally Atiki.

Those three players would work out and lift weights together as Mark Pope and the coaching staff recruited to the roster. One day, Stewart and Traore were leaving the gym together and had a moment.

“I looked at Fous,” Stewart said, “and I’m like, ‘Fous, this is two-thirds of the team right here, you and me.'”

Eventually Gideon George, who originally entered the transfer portal, returned to the program. The roster started to fill out with returned missionaries (Dallin Hall, Richie Saunders, Tanner Toolson), transfers (Rudi Williams, Jaxson Robinson, Noah Waterman), recruits and walk-ons.

The long process of developing chemistry into the best locker room in America had begun.

Now 18 strong, the team met the media on Wednesday at the BYU Broadcast Building. Stewart said he and his group of three were happy to take on the task of building a strong base for the 2022-23 season during those long summer months.

“We just really bonded,” Stewart said “Pope would bring us into his office and he’s like, ‘If you guys build this foundation then when you add pieces, it’ll fall perfectly into place.’ So that’s pretty much what’s happened. This summer, we really stayed close. We were really working on our relationships, and then as more people added, it was like, ‘Oh, come to what we’ve already been doing.’ And they kind of see that we’re already close. We’ve already created that family culture. So it was just normal for them to slide in.”

The roster is a eclectic mixture of those returning players along with the transfers, returned missionaries and walk-ons, with athletes from six different states and six different countries. Pope and his coaching staff, which includes newcomer Kahil Fennell, are pushing high tempo on offense and a more disruptive defense.

The high tempo will help emphasize a wealth of outside shooting and will be accomplished with conditioning and getting the ball up the floor.

“We’ve been working on running in transition a lot,” Johnson said. “More now than in the past two years I’ve been here. At times we’ve gotten up and down the floor but they’re really pushing us this year. Every time you get a rebound, you’re not running, you’re sprinting down the floor, wide and hard.

“On the flip side, our team is a bit smaller this year. So things that we’re going to have to shore up would be making sure we secure those rebounds so that we can get out and run because when you’re a little smaller, it’s obviously a little tougher to rebound against bigger teams.”

Pope said in the past he has drilled his players on defensive techniques and they didn’t deviate from those principles. This season the idea is to allow them to make live, in-game decisions on how to defend their opponents.

“With our approach in the past three years, it kind of gives us a limited ceiling because the opposing offense gets in a place of comfort where even if you’re not giving up high points-for-possession shots, over time, they get to know what they are going to see,” Pope said. “What we’re trying to do this year is we’re trying to give our guys more freedom to make decisions. So the downside of that when you give guys more freedom, sometimes nobody knows what’s going on and it’s just a mess.

“The positive side is that it’s a higher level of playing and thinking that you can be really, really disruptive defensively.”

That disruption includes different variations of defense, like a press or a zone. Johnson said in his two previous seasons, the Cougars have been strictly a man-to-man defensive team.

“The coaches are challenging us to get out in the passing lane more and take more chances that way,” he said. “You watch the NBA and those dudes, whenever someone drives they’re always slapping at the ball and always trying to get it. We’ve thrown a little bit of zone in there as well as a press. It’s going to be fun to see where that goes this year.”

The coaches chart DIM (Defensive Impact) numbers during practice, recording deflections, steals and other defensive stats. George and Saunders are neck-and-neck leading the team in those categories.

Pope said he embraces the expectations that go with coaching at BYU.

“We know we’ve set a high standard four ourselves here over the past three years,” he said. “I have a lot of faith in this group. I think this is going to be a group where you look out on the court and you’re like, ‘I actually don’t think those guys are going to win.’ We’re young and we’re small, right? Then afterwards you just walk out of the arena shaking your head, like, ‘I don’t know how those young players do this.’

“This team has a chance to grow into something beyond spectacular over the next couple of years. That’s super exciting and that’s where we are.”

BYU’s Blue and White Game is scheduled for 7 p.m. In the Marriott Center next Wednesday, with an exhibition game on the slate for Nov. 2 against Ottawa (Ariz.).

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