Cougars aim to shake 3-point shooting woes

Former Brigham Young basketball standout Jackson Emery has advice for the Cougars' struggling guards: "Stop thinking and just shoot."

Shooting woes, especially from 3-point range, have frustrated BYU's starting guards all season.

"When you go through a shooting slump, you start thinking about everything. You doubt, question and pay more attention to detail," said Emery, a guard who concluded his Cougars career last season. "You can't think about it or overanalyze it. You just have to get in the flow and let the natural ability take over.

"These guys are aiming too much."

In the past six games, BYU's guards are shooting 13.4 percent on 3-pointers, making only 11 of 82 attempts. Freshman Matt Carlino is 3 of 27, junior Brock Zylstra 2 of 21, redshirt freshman Anson Winder, a Bishop Gorman product, is 2 of 14 and senior Charles Abouo is 4 of 20.

BYU, which hosts Pepperdine in a West Coast Conference game Saturday, won four of those six games, but the losses came at home. That leaves the Cougars (20-6, 8-3 WCC) all but out of the WCC regular-season title chase and on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament.

BYU is battling Gonzaga (18-4, 8-2) for second place behind No. 16 Saint Mary's (22-2, 11-0).

"I've never seen a team at BYU go through a collective slump like this," said Emery, who now works for EcoScraps, a Utah composting company. "But once they hit one, everyone is going to start hitting, and whoever they are playing will be in big trouble."

Saturday's game against Pepperdine (8-15, 2-10) will be broadcast on BYUtv (Cable 352) at 3 p.m. PST. The Cougars beat the Waves 77-64 in Malibu, Calif., on Jan. 21. Brandon Davies scored 29 points and Noah Hartsock 20, and BYU's guards made 2 of 11 3-point shots.

■ DYNAMIC DUO -- Emery made 92 3-point shots and played in 107 wins for BYU, including 75 victories alongside Jimmer Fredette between 2008 and 2011. They became the most productive guard tandem in school history.

Fredette broke Danny Ainge's career scoring record with 2,599 points. Emery  scored 1,235 -- 22nd all-time -- and passed Ainge for the school record with 249 steals. Ainge's records for points (2,467) and steals (195) had held up for 30 years.

■ CONTACT CONTROVERSY -- Emery said the Cougars' 89-77 victory at UNLV on Jan. 5, 2011, is one of his most cherished memories. He made six 3-pointers and scored 22 points. Combined with Fredette's 39, the guards dismantled the Rebels' defense. But it was a situation midway through the first half that helped turn the game.

With BYU trailing 25-15, Emery accidentally was poked in the eye, dislodging a contact lens.

"I thought I was taken out of the game, so I went to the sideline and was taking my time trying to get it back in," he recalled. "My adrenaline was pumping. My hand was shaking, making it hard to hold my contact, and I didn't have a mirror. Then the fans started booing. I had never been so stressed out putting in a contact."

The break in action stripped the Rebels of their momentum. BYU responded by taking a 38-35 lead by halftime.

Emery and Fredette then combined to score the first 11 points of the second half. With UNLV focused on Fredette, Emery ran off seven unanswered points to push the Cougars' lead to 17.

"When that buzzer went off, we were just ecstatic," Emery said. "We knew it was a special season, and that win set the tone for the remainder of the year."

■ JUST WATCHING -- Fredette capped his senior season by joining the NBA's Sacramento Kings. The 24-year-old Emery, who was selected the Mountain West Conference Defensive Player of the Year last season, opted to hang up his sneakers and go to work for EcoScraps in Utah County and become a spectator of BYU games with his young family.

His brother Nick, a highly touted junior at Lone Peak High School in Alpine, Utah, verbally committed to BYU and will look to build on the Emery legacy beginning in 2014.

Dave McCann is a morning news anchor on KLAS-TV (Channel 8). He also hosts "True Blue" at 5 p.m. Monday on BYUtv and is the play-by-play voice for BYUtv. He can be reached at dmccann@8newsnow.com and on Twitter: @davemccann8.