BYU's Jackson Emery is perfecting the art of basketball thievery

PROVO — A tightly wound bundle of ganglion, sinew and muscle is making its mark in the form of BYU junior guard Jackson Emery.

He has become the Mountain West Conference Prince of Thieves.

Wednesday night at Colorado State, Emery should break BYU's single-season steal record he currently shares with Marty Haws (66) and he has a chance to attack the league single season record.

Haws is a guy who could run 100 meters in 10.5 seconds playing point guard at BYU 20 years ago. Emery says he's not even the second or third fastest spurt sprinter on BYU's team because Michael Loyd Jr., and Charles Abouo are faster.

But there's something else working for Emery as he amasses steals for the 14th ranked Cougars. He's sneaky.

"He does have tremendous lateral quickness," said BYU coach Dave Rose, "And he's very skilled at anticipating and understanding what opponents are doing or what their tendencies are. He's one of those guys who can see what's happening before it happens."

Emery should have broken BYU's single-season steal mark against Air Force on Saturday in the Marriott Center where school officials were poised to honor him and present him the game ball. Emery stole the ball from an AFA player inside the key and appeared headed down court when fouled. He was not officially credited for a steal on the play.

"He does have a knack for getting the ball," said Rose.

Only something in the bad fortune department will keep Emery from finishing the league as the leader in steals. His 66 steals thus far is significantly higher than the league's No. 2 player, Wyoming's A.J. Davis (38) who withdrew from school for personal reasons more than a week ago.

Emery's nearest challenger is New Mexico's Roman Martinez (38) and teammate Jimmer Fredette (34).

It would be tough, but Emery is within reach of the MWC's single season steal leader, Marcus Banks of UNLV who had 91 steals in 2002-03. If Emery gets six more regular season games, plus at least two in the MWC tournament and an NCAA tournament game, his average of 2.6 per game will give him about 23 for a total of 89.

If he got three MWC tournament games and helped BYU break that one-and-done wall in the NCAA Tournament, he certainly could catch Banks, especially if the Cougars got a high seed.