BYU Basketball: The tale of two Nick Emery’s

Three years ago fans thought Nick Emery may be the next Jimmer. One year ago fans thought they would never see him on the court again. To say its been a long journey would be an understatement.

37 points. The most points ever scored in a game by a freshman player. More than Danny Ainge or Mark Bigelow did in their illustrious careers. A career like theirs is what BYU fans hoped for when Nick Emery put up the best performance of his young career against San Francisco on February 11, 2016, and the heir to Jimmer’s scoring throne seemed possibly found. Emery would go on to average close to 17 points a game which falls second all-time behind Ainge for a freshman. A solid but semi-inconsistent sophomore season followed his All-WCC Freshman year, but Cougar fans still hoped that this southpaw deep threat was one of, if not the cornerstone player of the future.

That was until a little thing called life came into play.

Emery’s life was upside down due to personal conflict and an NCAA investigation that led him to take a year away from the game during the 2017-2018 season. The conclusion of the investigation stated that Emery had violated NCAA rules and was suspended for the first nine games of the 2018-2019 season. Those are the facts that everyone is aware of and I am not here to pile on Emery, quite the contrary. The hardships of recent experiences have given BYU a different kind of Nick Emery, one just as important as the heir apparent. Let me show you some reasons why the evolution of Nick Emery has benefited the Cougars.

Defense

Emery has become one of the best on-ball defenders that Coach Rose has on the roster. Alongside McKay Cannon, Emery is a guy that you can put on an island and trust that he can stick to his guy. He spends most of his nights guarding teams’ best shooters or ball handlers. Since getting the starting job back against Portland he has been averaging 2 steals a game and is among the top in Defensive Win Shares (.3) and Defensive rating (105.2) in conference play for BYU.

Emery has always been a quick-handed guard, but he has elevated his defense and it shows. Since winning a starting job, the Cougars are 4-0 winning tough road games coming from behind. BYU put the clamps down on LMU as they finished the game on an 18-4 run to escape the Lions in L.A. Emery’s defense has been nothing short of a game changer.

Decision Making

Scoring was always Emery’s forte, but he has good vision to make the extra pass to his teammates. However, his assist to turnover rates were not ideal early in his career. As a sophomore, he had 82 assists or 2.4 a game but 69 turnovers or 2 a game. Having the ball in your hands means more chances to make mistakes but this year he has been a little more cautious with 31 assists to only 16 turnovers. He has been much calmer and more composed and has kept his temper in check, a problem that caused major issues in his freshman season. His attitude is mature and team-centered, and his only concern now is a W in the left column.

A New Role

“Do your job.” A simple phrase, from one of the greatest coaches in NFL history Bill Belichick, is also one of the most fundamentally true statements in sports. Not everyone can take the final shot of the game or be the superstar player. The strength of a team comes from the players that live in the glowing background from the spotlight on someone else.

Emery has become one of those players. Expectations were maybe set too high and after a great showing against Utah State pressure mounted to keep moving forward. After an up and down season, he came into his own against LMU in early February, hitting 5 threes and helping lock down James Bateman with his trademark defense. He finally fit his role perfectly as a three and D guy. In the basketball world of today, every great team has one or two guys whose job is to make threes and play great defense. Once Emery embraced that role his game started to come naturally to him and the results speak for themselves.

Emery isn’t the fearless scorer that he once was and that’s fine. He has filled the need that the team has because winning is always more important than getting your own stats. This new Emery isn’t the one that I or maybe anyone else expected to be playing for the Cougars, but he is the one that they need both now and in the future as they look toward the WCC tournament and the post season.