Breaking down the legendary game-winning shot by TJ Haws against Saint Mary’s

After hitting the game winning shot, Brigham Young Cougars guard TJ Haws (30) and the rest of the team walk around the court celebrating with fans as BYU defeats Saint Mary’s in an NCAA basketball game in Provo at the Marriott Center on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. BYU won 81-79. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

When TJ Haws buried a 25-foot game-winning shot against Saint Mary’s last Saturday, it was part payback, part extreme confidence and capped a lot of strategy that went on throughout the game.

PROVO — TJ Haws will always be known as a hard-playing, intense, streaky player, but his antics in BYU’s thrilling 81-79 win over Saint Mary’s Saturday night will define him in Cougardom for the rest of his life.

His sprint dribble to a quick pull-up 25-foot game-winner with eight seconds left was a play legends are made of.

The play electrified the Marriott Center crowd and atoned for a 40-foot dagger on that floor by Gaels star Matthew Dellavedova seven years ago that ripped the hearts out of a BYU team.

Touche.

The man who recruited Haws from Lone Peak High, Dave Rose, was near the bench Saturday night. He’s seen TJ’s career and can put it in perspective. He was there when Haws hit the game-winner at Houston. He was there at No. 1 Gonzaga, Cougars down 18-2 when Haws hit three or four bombs and cut the lead to half a dozen, breathing life back into the Cougars en route to an upset.

“It was TJ’s kind of payback,” Rose said.

Rose added that there are hours and hours of talk before a two-hour game and hours and hours of talk after a game, but if you see the whole picture of TJ Haws’ career in which he’s started every game since he arrived, you get the picture of a tremendous guard.

From a coaching standpoint, Rose found it interesting how Gaels’ coach Randy Bennett chose to approach stopping Haws, who had 29 against Saint Mary’s earlier in the month. “Randy’s strategy is always to try and take the head off the snake, the player he believes can hurt you the most,” Rose said.

In this game, Bennett chose to use two tag-team guards to get in Haws’ way, Tommy Kuhse and Logan Johnson. Kuhse is Bennett’s best choice to run his offense and have the attack flow through him, but he isn’t one to be an effective stopper of Haws. When Kuhse struggled guarding Haws, Bennett went to Johnson.

At the end of the game, it was Johnson’s job to get in the way of Haws. He had a decision to go under the screen and guess that Haws would repeat earlier short jumpers from the junction, or he could go in front of the screen and keep closer to Haws. Johnson chose to go under. He got caught up in the screen when Haws didn’t make a cut to the paint.

Before that sequence, Rose said a real big play was a block on a fast break made by Jake Toolson that turned into a quick jumper by Haws on the other end coming off a pick and roll. “That play got TJ going and he hit a couple of others.”

Rose could see Kuhse and Johnson struggling to guard Haws, who was having a masterful game of decision-making with screens and pick and rolls. Rose felt on the final play, with Johnson guarding Haws, coach Mark Pope would call a high ball screen to set Haws free at the junction where he’d canned a series of shots down the stretch.

As it turned out, Johnson found himself guarding Haws and decided to go under the screen set by Yoeli Childs. That, Rose believes, knowing Haws, was a sign of disrespect and it clicked something inside of him. Something born of tens of thousands of hours practicing shots. It lifted his confidence that he was going to have an open shot.

Open with several dribbles and Johnson desperately fighting to get free and race over to Haws, it was too late. Haws got a clean shot, taken in rhythm, his legs moving in mid-air to find his balance and get to his launch point. It is this launch point that Haws has tremendous confidence in, as shown throughout his high school and college careers.

It is this point in his shot, near the top of his jump, where his muscle memory takes over and it becomes an automatic shot born of a lifetime of confidence-building practice.

The ball never wavered off its mark, its arc perfect, its entry into the hoop without question.

It was classic.

It was decisive. And yes, it was payback.

Now it is legend.

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