BYU basketball notebook: Jonathan Tavernari sets career milestone for wins with Cougars

LARAMIE, Wyo. — With BYU's comfortable win Saturday afternoon over Wyoming at Arena-Auditorium, Cougar senior forward Jonathan Tavernari became the winningest player in BYU basketball history.

Tavernari, who scored 17 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished out two assists and snagged one steal in the 85-63 victory, has now played in 98 BYU victories — passing Lee Cummard, who played in 97 wins in his career which ended last year.

Tavernari, the Cougars' sixth man, says the record is one of his proudest marks from his four years at BYU.

"As a basketball player, what you want to do is win," he said. "You don't want to score points or be the leading scorer. The kind of numbers you want to put up are on the win column."

The Cougars have actually won 102 games in Tavernari's career, but he did not play in four of them during his freshman year.

"To be part of four 25-win teams, not many people can say that," he said. "But I have to give credit to my teammates for helping me get here."

Coach Dave Rose is impressed with how Tavernari is doing whatever it takes right now for the Cougars to win.

"I don't know if I've coached anyone who knows the score better than JT. He knows the score in practice, he knows the score in drills, and he knows the score in every thing you do. He's a competitive player, and I'm proud of him. You think of all of the really good players who have played here, and he's been able to win a lot of games," Rose said.

NOT LIKE IT WAS FOR DAD: Freshman Tyler Haws played in Arena-Auditorium for the first time Saturday in front of a calm, quiet and small crowd. When his father Marty played here 20 years ago, Wyoming fans packed the place and didn't greet the Cougars so nicely. Tyler Haws has seen game film from those days. "It was a crazy environment when he played, but it was kind of a different atmosphere tonight," he said.

WARNING FROM THE COACH: Prior to Saturday's game, coach Rose reminded his players how a couple of Top 25 teams — Wisconsin and Gonzaga — had recently lost on the road to big underdog teams. The Cougars also knew that Air Force — just like the Falcons nearly did against the Cougars late last year — almost beat New Mexico on Saturday.

BIG-MAN FOUL TROUBLES: With four minutes left in the first half Saturday, BYU's post players Chris Miles, Brandon Davies and Noah Hartsock were on the bench with two fouls each.