BYU basketball: Tavernari roller-coaster headed back up again

PROVO — It's no secret to any local basketball fan that BYU junior Jonathan Tavernari has a penchant for the flamboyant.

It's the style with which he plays on the court, and as well is a big part of his personality off the court.

Before the season began, however, the confident Brazilian said his main goal was to turn his basketball hot and cold streaks into a year of consistency. But with two-thirds of the season in the books, Tavernari really hasn't accomplished that goal — at least in terms of statistics. No one has questioned his effort, but his numbers have been a little on the roller-coaster side.

He's second on BYU in scoring at 16.8 ppg, slightly behind Lee Cummard's 16.9 pgg and a little ahead of Jimmer Fredette's 15.7 ppg. However, Tavernari has taken 81 more shots than Fredette and 68 more than Cummard.

Tavernari is making 44.3 percent of his shots and 36.7 percent from 3-point range. Against Cal-Poly he went 0-for-10. In comparison, Fredette is connecting on 50.6 percent of his shots and 41.7 from long range. Cummard's percentages are 56.8 and 41.9.

That's not to say that Tavernari hasn't had some outstanding shooting games. He's had 10 games in which he made more than half his shots. But he's had seven in which he made less than 40 percent of his shots, and five of those came in BYU's first seven conference games.

Cougar coach Dave Rose has searched for ways to get more consistency and focus from his talented forward, including a nine-game ban on talking to the media. Tavernari himself has at times displayed visible signs of frustration.

But in BYU's last two games, wins over Air Force and Colorado State, Tavernari has been at the top of his game. Against the Falcons he scored 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting. His performance against the Rams was even better — in fact, probably his best of the year. In scoring a game-high 21, he made 8-of-11 shots, 5-of-5 from 3-point range, and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

"Those are back-to-back games that he's put together for us where he's been at a really high level of focus," Rose said.

Early in the season Tulsa coach Doug Wojik called Tavernari BYU's "difference maker." If Tavernari can play the remainder of the season the way he has the past two games — when the Cougars realistically need to go 7-0 or 6-1 to win a third-straight conference title — he might be just that.

"If we get really good play out of one, two, three of (the starting five) our team's going to be better," Rose said. "If we get good play out of all five of them, like we did (against CSU), this is a really good team."