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Tyler Mrus, a 6-foot-7 guard from Bothell, Wash., transferred to BYU in the spring of 2025 from the University of Idaho.

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BYU guard Tyler Mrus drives past former Cougar Brandon Davies in practice during the summer of 2025.

Madi White, BYU Athletics

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BYU guard Tyler Mrus goes through a defensive drill during practice in the summer of 2025.

Madi White, BYU Athletics

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Tyler Mrus thought he knew pain.

He was a Division I college basketball player, after all. Pushing through the aches, bruises and bumps that go along with the everyday grind is all part of the gig.

Then he found himself sprawled on the floor of the ICCU Center at the University of Idaho on Nov. 9, 2023, his leg at an odd angle and broken in five places. He said he felt numb for a while but after about 45 minutes, the pain began to overwhelm him.

That excruciating pain — and the experience he gained overcoming the injury — is always in the back of his mind, even now after transferring from Idaho to play for Kevin Young at BYU.

Mrus was having a great game against Northridge, making 4 of 4 from beyond the arc and leading the Vandals with 14 points in just 21 minutes. Then on a fast break, his life changed.

“I was hit the air kind of weird,” Mrus recalled. “After I landed my leg was sort of flopping to the left side. Once the pain set in, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I ended up destroying my fibula and had some torn ligaments in my ankle. Kind of like Paul George’s injury but I was really blessed the bone didn’t break the skin.”

Unfortunately for Mrus, there was a gas leakage in Moscow and the hospital was closed, so he couldn’t have surgery for three days. Pain meds simply weren’t enough.

“You hear people talk about rating their pain, 1 to 10?” Mrus said. “Now I knew what a ’10’ was.”

After the surgery, his mother, Stephanie, came to Moscow. They moved into a hotel for a week because Tyler was unable to care for himself early in the recovery.

Mrus managed to make it back the next season for Idaho, enduring a crisis of confidence and dealing with the frustration and impatience of the road to recovery. There was also a setback when Mrus had to go back into a walking boot because of a stress reaction in his foot, but he persevered through it all.

“My teammates joked with me that I should get an NIL deal with one of the boot companies, since I was spending so much time in them,” he said.

Mrus started all 31 games for the Vandals in 2023-24, averaging 9.7 points per game and making 73 3-pointers (second in the Big Sky Conference) at a 38% clip. Five times he made five or more triples in a game.

“I’m a perfectionist and I want to succeed in everything,” Mrus said. “During the summer, one of my coaches took me out to lunch and helped me see things a little differently. He said I’d gone through one of the hardest things an athlete can through and that I should just feel blessed I could go out and play. He told me I should enjoy myself because it could be taken away at any time, and I knew that.

“I adopted that mentality. I’m enjoying basketball and having fun. You know how kids play when their younger? There’s no pressure, no expectations. I just wanted to have fun and enjoy the game like I did when I was five years old.”

One of the games he played in mid-November last season was in Provo at the Marriott Center, a night where Idaho lost 95-71. Mrus ended up making 4 of 8 from the 3-point line and led the Vandals with 17 points.

“It was kind of surreal out there,” Mrus said. “I felt like it was a March Madness game. I remember after a media time out I looked up and saw the BYU student section going crazy. I really appreciated that. One of my teammates after the game told me that BYU probably has me on their radar now.

“So after the season I entered the transfer portal and ended up here. It felt like a dream come true. I grew up in Washington state and U-Dub (the University of Washington) was my dream school. But to be here in Provo, it can’t get any better than this. The season hasn’t even started yet but I feel at home and absolutely love it here.”

After four years at Seattle Prep in Washington state, Mrus played one year at Alaska-Fairbanks before joining the University of Idaho the past two seasons.

Now, he feels he’s ready for big-time college hoops.

As a shooter, Mrus could fill similar role as the recently graduated Trevin Knell, a 3-point sniper who can find places to be dangerous in BYU’s spread offense.

“I want to be a ‘3 and D’ man,” he said. “I think I’m a floor spacer. I can knock down threes and I think I’m a pretty good defender who plays with a chip on my shoulder. When our energy is down in a game, I’m going to go in there and try to boost it up. I’m the type of guy that rises to the occasion. I want the opportunity to play under the bright lights.”