BYU basketball: Cougars welcome Washington, C.J. Wilcox for NIT game

"The matchup's a little difficult. They're (a) really athletic and deep team, especially on their frontline," Rose said. "Size will be an issue in this game."

Washington's Aziz N'Diaye, a 7-foot center, averages 8.9 points and 9.2 rebounds per contest.

"They have a lot of big guys, a lot of experienced guys," said Davies. "It's going to take a big effort on our part to get a win."

The Cougars are coming off a disappointing 72-69 loss to San Diego in the quarterfinals of the West Coast Conference tournament March 8.

In that game, Haws scored 20 points, but played just 29 minutes due to a lingering illness. He said he's healthy now.

"I’m feeling great," Haws said. "A week off with no games really helps a lot. My body feels good and I’m sure our whole team is feeling a lot healthier this week."

If they can win Tuesday, the Cougars are guaranteed to host a second-round NIT game against either No. 2 Tennessee or No. 7 Mercer. Tennessee's arena is being used for women's NCAA tournament games and cannot host a potential second-round matchup.

But Rose said he and his team certainly aren't looking beyond Tuesday's game.

"The most important thing is the preparation for this game and to go out and play, compete and try to get a win, then deal with what happens next," Rose said. "We didn't have any conversation about what happens after the game. It looks like it could be a good situation, but all our focus in on this game, and playing more consistently than we did last time out. I thought there were stretches where we played really well and competed hard. But it was not consistent throughout the whole game. We'll need to do that (Tuesday) to win."

Davies said the Cougars are well-rested and eager for this NIT challenge.

"Now that we have something to fight for, you can just see it in our guys' eyes — that we're ready to play and we're all excited."