BYU’s Tyler Haws returns from his Mormon mission eager to pick up where he left off

Our take: After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines, small forward Tyler Haws is returning to the Cougars. Haws talks about his decision to serve a mission, what impact it will have on his life and basketball career, and what he is doing to prepare for his next season of college basketball with BYU.

At the same time as Jimmermania was spreading across the nation during BYU's remarkable 32-win 2010-11 season, the kid who'd have been the starting small forward on that team was 7,000 miles away in a country he knew little about a few months earlier.

Tyler Haws admits he sometimes thinks about whether he could have helped that BYU team go even further than the Sweet 16 had he been there to help on the floor rather than getting weekly updates from his dad via email. Nonetheless, the 6-foot-5 sophomore feels he made the right decision taking two years away from basketball to serve a Mormon mission in the Philippines.

"I never felt any regret," Haws said. "I was happy for what was going on at BYU, but I knew I was supposed to be in the Philippines. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. That experience over there, those two years, will be something I reflect on the rest of my life."

Read more about Tyler Haws' return from his mission on Yahoo Sports.