BYU basketball: Rose remains in charge despite illness

PROVO — The BYU men's basketball coaching staff met Thursday at the home of head coach Dave Rose — to discuss basketball matters with the fifth-year Cougar mentor, not Rose's upcoming fight with pancreatic cancer.

"His schedule this summer might be affected (by the illness) but there's no doubt he's firmly in charge of this program," said BYU associate head coach Dave Rice.

Thursday's meeting was the first of many makeshift meetings the staff will have regularly over the next few weeks while Rose recuperates from the emergency surgery he had two weekends ago in Las Vegas to remove his spleen and part of his pancreas. Once doctors give Rose the OK, and if his yet-to-be-determined treatment allows, the meetings will return to BYU's Marriott Center basketball offices.

"He said today when we met with him that he feels great, and that he really feels optimistic and determined to beat this situation," Rice said. "He reiterated with us what he did with the players (in a team meeting Wednesday) that he plans to be coaching this year and that he feels really, really good."

OK, the meeting wasn't totally about basketball, but mostly.

"We just talked about the future and how fortunate he feels to be (the players') coach and how much he looks forward to coming back and trying to win a fourth conference championship and do some special things after the season as well," Rice said.

On Wednesday, Rose revealed he had been diagnosed with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cancer — a rare form but more treatable form of pancreatic cancer found only in 5 percent of pancreatic cancer patients. Rose will meet with doctors over the next few days to determine a treatment plan. He told Rice that he'll likely meet with reporters sometime next week to discuss that plan.

Rice said Rose looks a little weak from the surgery, but said Rose admitted feeling better now than he did three weeks ago.

"He was as positive about his future and being the basketball coach at BYU as I've ever seen ... he still feels really positive about his ability to run the program ... he's optimistic that he'll continue to be the coach not only in the long term, but the short term as well."

Rice said he sensed some therapeutic value in Rose wanting to remain informed on and in charge of the daily basketball operations.

"Once you get past family, the most important thing in his life is coaching this team and the relationship he has with his players. So I think he's going to be determined and fight this as hard as he can because he really wants to come back and have it be business as usual. He loves what he does."