Tavernari put ego on hold; Junior Day

Got to hand it to Jonathan Tavernari.

After the shooting slump he’s been through, he could have handled success a lot of ways. In BYU’s convincing win over New Mexico, Tavernari showed why he is such a dangerous shooter when he is on. His outstanding shooting dislay, mostly from beyond the arc in the first half, dismantled and discouraged Steve Alford’s club within nine minutes.

Afterwards, Tavernari went overboard crediting his teammates for their support, their help, their passes and their friendship. It was a nice touch by a guy who has not seen a shot he doesn’t like.

Tavernari said his slump might have been to the speed at which he started shooting, that he needed a slower pace in his body clock to properly make shots. He had it Saturday night.

“I just want to thnnk my teammates. Without them, I couldn’t do anything.”

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This past weekend was Junior Day for the football team. This is a weekend where BYU issues invitations to high school players who are in their junior years and will be evaluated in the spring. To date, Bronco Mendenhall has been very successful in staging this event, taking what was a routine and mundane event in the program and turning it into a purposeful, well-directed, presentation-oriented time for players and their parents.

Junior Days of the past have resulted in a barrage of early commitments from recruits. Even before this weekend, Mendenhall’s goal to target and make early offers to juniors and even sophomores have yielded results. Before Saturday, BYU had oral commitments from center Terry Alletto from Ponderosa, Colo,; Craig Bills, a safety at Timpview High; Jray Gates, a safety at Kahuku High and Snow Canyon running back Adam Timo, whose oral commitment back in May 2007 broke in the Deseret Morning News.

I spoke to athletic director Tom Holmoe over the weekend about Junior Day. On two fronts, he’s impressed with what Mendenhall’s done with the event. Having been a Pac-10 head coach he recognizes the risk in offering kids early. But he also sees that if BYU’s staff like a guy, why not get into it early. He likes the idea that Mendenhall decided not to wait for Junior Day in connection with spring football this year. He simply moved it up to a time his entire staff was available and not distracted by spring football. Why not go early?

Secondly, Mendenhall hasn’t wasted money by making it a global village affair. While numbers have increased in participating and invitations to juniors, the players invited are specific talent BYU believes they can court and win. Same with the recruiting visits given to other recruits. Instead of overloading and inviting everyone on a list, he’s narrowed it down to faces and talent BYU has a real chance at, and a few that are long shots.

We’ll see how this pans out in days to come.