BYU basketball: Disappointed Cougars looking toward next year

PHILADELPHIA — Since most players on BYU's basketball team will return next season, they'll be chewing on the NCAA Tournament loss to Texas A&M for quite some time.

But when they finally do spit the bitter taste out from the program's seventh-straight first-round loss, they're hoping they learned enough from Thursday's hard-to-swallow meal that it's a flavor they won't have to sample again.

"Well, these are tough losses," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "I mean, when you get beat in the tournament you want to look towards all the good things that the team has accomplished. But it will take a little while to recover from because our expectation was to come here and win, to advance. That's the next step for us and for this group returning, is, first of all, to qualify for the tournament, and then to advance."

Only senior Lee Cummard departs, for sure, from the nine main players who helped the Cougars earn their third consecutive NCAA Tournament berth. Back for a final season will be junior starters Jonathan Tavernari and Chris Miles. They'll be joined by sophomore starters Jackson Emery and Jimmer Fredette.

"Lee was a great player for this program. He was our leader," Fredette said following Thursday's loss. "Whenever we got into a tough spot, we could just get the ball to him and he'd go make a play for us. That's something that obviously we're going to be missing next year. So we're going to have to have guys come back and step up and play and lead the team."

The entire reserve clan — junior Lamont Morgan Jr., and freshmen Charles Abouo, Noah Hartsock and James Anderson — will return one year more seasoned and with one NCAA Tournament experience under their belts.

"We got four guys that are returning starters, then we got a lot of guys that had some experience this year coming off the bench. It's good to have that experience for the whole team. So we just need to go out and be able to fill that leadership role," Fredette said.

Whether Tavernari will return for his senior year depends on the professional opportunities that come his way after spending the summer playing with the Brazilian national team.

But even if he doesn't return, the Cougars should have a solid starting five and more depth on the bench.