Fredette returns to dominance

PROVO — Bad news for the rest of the Mountain West: BYU point guard Jimmer Fredette is back and showed evidence of acting like his old self again.

You know, the driving, pull-back jump shot-making whirlwind only a microscopic virus slowed down.

Over the past 18 days, with Fredette a shadow of himself, BYU went 5-0 and averaged 82 points a game while breaking into the national rankings. It's a streak that featured wins over upper echelon MWC team UNLV at home and UTEP in El Paso.

Saturday, Fredette told reporters he is 90 to 95 percent back from a bout of strep throat, an adverse reaction to medicine and mononucleosis — illnesses that sapped up his energy since he lit up Arizona for a record 49 points last month.

Fredette looked 80 percent to me. Yet he scored 21 points and had four assists in 24 minutes in BYU's 91-47 blowout of Colorado State.

Tim Miles brought a Colorado State team with a 2-0 league record into the Marriott Center. It was an excursion to find out how his Rams stacked up against what he called one of the top teams in the Mountain West.

After all, CSU and BYU were tied atop the league standings.

Within 12 minutes, Miles witnessed a complete dismantling of his team.

"I think that is the best basketball team I've ever coached against," Miles said after the Cougars shot a blistering 58 percent and limited his Rams to making just 16 field goals while forcing 23 turnovers.

With the win, No. 18 BYU climbed to 18-1 and the Rams provided just another blowout victim for Dave Rose.

Amazingly, the Cougars, with or without a healthy Fredette, are beating opponents by an average of 20 points a game. In 13 of their 18 wins, the Cougars have won by an average of 32 points.

Rose has found a squad with 11 bodies who seem interchangeable, and freshmen Tyler Haws and Brandon Davies — both local guys — are proving as key as any.

Using a home-court advantage as an expected springboard, BYU's bench players scorched CSU for 43 points. At one point in the first half, Charles Abouo — who made 4 of 5 shots and hauled down 9 rebounds — put two successful power drive moves on the Rams as good as any a Cougar player has made this season.

The Cougars went to the end of their bench with 3:10 left and holding an 82-44 lead. Such a mercy move could have come a few minutes earlier. But it wouldn't have mattered.