Memoirs: BYU basketball's 'collective heat check' defies all believability

Welcome to Memoirs from the Mount, an adventure through the twisting catacombs of my ever-decaying stream of consciousness. From the solitary peak of Mount Fuji to the cascading slopes of Mount Timpanogos, I'm sending a telegram of my perspective on current events surroundingBYU athletics.

The heat-check. It's one of sports' most unexplainable phenomena. Seemingly at a moment's notice, and with no signs leading to its spark, a player can spontaneously combust before the eyes of tens of thousands during a basketball game. They catch fire, and suddenly cannot miss. It has no equal in other sports, nor does it reserve its magical effects for the truly elite of the game. A heat-check can engulf any player at any time for any reason.

It's one of the reasons why basketball, as a competition, is always worth watching from start to finish. You never know when a player will light off a once-in-a-lifetime performance from nothing.

If you've watched enough basketball, you've certainly seen it before. A player makes a shot, and again on the subsequent possession. Nothing unusual, right? Of course. But then it happens again. Another shot goes down. And another. And another until suddenly every set of witnessing eyeballs is open wide. Every mouth is hollering. The player, though visibly identical to their prior self, has ascended to a higher plane -- a flow state where the rules of the land are irrelevant, and their will cannot be shaken. Everyone else sees a simple 18-inch orange rim protruding from the base of the backboard, but the player in the zone sees a vast ocean. Send two, three, or four defenders in that player's direction; it doesn't matter.

I remember last season's Big 12 Tournament matchup between BYU and Iowa State. The Cyclones, without star point guard Tamin Lipsey, were forced to rely on their sixth man to keep pace with the Cougars' high-octane offense. Curtis Jones, a player whose basketball arsenal was constructed like a tinder box, caught flame unlike anything I had ever seen.

Everything was going down. Floaters, three-pointers, outrageous turnaround, fallaway jumpers that would have given Patrick Ewing an aneurysm on the Georgetown sideline. Still, everything was falling for Jones, and why would you ever stop shooting if you simply couldn't miss?

Not even the halftime break could cool him down. He was a one-man offense, and a highly efficient one. The John Henry to BYU's well-oiled machine barreling down the tracks adjacent. I couldn't believe my eyes as he made shot after shot, one hair-pulling basket at a time.

If you don't remember this event, do yourself a favor and watch the condensed game recap embedded below. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing a BYU victory is ensured, this is one of the best highlight reels I've ever witnessed. Jones' heat check begins around the 2:30 mark.

Dip your toe into the water, but be careful: it is positively boiling.

A similar heat-check occurred in the Marriott Center on Saturday night, but despite the fact that AJ Dybantsa posted a career-high 43 points against the rival Utes, AJ didn't hog the heat. No, not at all.

Utah, one of the Big 12's worst shooting teams, knocked down 62% of their looks from beyond the arc. Scorching, and I mean scorching hot, it's a miracle that the Cougars won that game at all, let alone by double digits. Dybantsa scored on 80% of his three-pointers, a far-cry from his 30% season average.

But most miraculously of all, even the fans were feeling the heat in Provo that night. Two, count 'em, two fans hit half-court shots during timeouts to win a bucket of cash. To add to the insanity, one more fan hit enough three-pointers to go home with a brand new car on the same night. Sponsors of BYU athletics have been horribly crippled in one fell swoop.

So, to sum it all up for those losing track at home...

AJ Dybantsa was red-hot, hitting four of his five three-point attempts and shattering the program record for points in a single game by a freshman.

Utah was red-hot, hitting 13 of their 21 (62%) three-point attempts on the road.

The fans in the arena were red-hot, going two-for-two on half-court heaves and efficient enough from distance to win a car.

And if that wasn't crazy enough, it's worth mentioning that two other freshmen from across the nation also notched 40+ point games. Houston's Kingston Flemings had 42, and Illinois' Keaton Wagler had 46 at Purdue.

Something was in the air on Saturday night. Hopefully you were lucky enough to catch some of the heat radiating from seemingly every basketball player on the planet.