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Seeing BYU beat San Jose St. was just a give me kind of game. Don’t get me wrong. It was important to win the game and add to that total number of wins at the end of the season. 20 win teams are looked at very favorably come selection Sunday. However, beating San Jose St. says nothing about the quality of the BYU basketball team.

BYU was playing at home in the Marriott center against a road weary San Jose St. team. That should be enough to convince you that this game says nothing. However, look at San Jose St’s roster and you’ll see that they only have two guys at 6′9″ holding down the center spot. No wonder Trent Plaisted scored 20 points and had eight rebounds. Having 2 inches on someone is a huge difference.

Trent played great and deserves credit for that, but San Jose St was completely over matched down low. He’s not going to have that once we start playing conference games. He’s going to be matched up against talented big men that are going to challenge him on every play. Will he perform? It’s yet to be seen, but I do know that he better stay out of foul trouble. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long basketball season for BYU.

What I’m really looking forward to is this Saturday’s game against Michigan State. That’s a game that will say something about the team.

As a Side Note: Did everyone else enjoy seeing that Utah State beat Utah on the final shot?

A recent article by Scout.com talks about the Haka being performed by members of the BYU football team before a game. I guess a number of people are upset that the “white boys” are participating in the Haka. I thought that Bryce Mahuika’s response rang true:

“I’ve never in my whole life heard that certain people can and cannot do the haka,” said BYU wide receiver Bryce Mahuika, who is the grandson of a Maori chief. “The All Blacks [New Zealand’s national rugby team] were the first to do it in a sports atmosphere. They’ve had all kinds of different people do it like white guys, poly guys such as Tongans and Samoans who aren’t even Maori. They have all kinds of different guys doing it, and they’ve always done it. If they are all doing it in New Zealand where the Maori culture is from, then why can’t everybody do it here?”

I’m surprised that this is an issue. However, no one should really think that the Haka being performed by American athletes was started by BYU. I went to Highland High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Highland’s greatest sport (although it was only a club sport) is Rugby!! Highland High School’s rugby team is one of the greatest high school rugby teams in the world. That’s really saying something. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think in a 14 year stretch they won 9 national championships.

One year the Rugby National Championship was held in Provo, Utah and I made the trek to see Highland High play for the Rugby National Championship. It was a great game and Highland High School won. After winning the whole Rugby team came over in front of the stands with shirts torn off and started doing the Haka. I’d never seen it before this, but it was impressive and fierce. I remember some of the white players hitting their chests so hard they turned a bright red. I later found out this was a tradition for the Highland High School Rugby team. I think it had a powerful effect on the team.

Granted, that was Rugby and the Haka was obviously taken from New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team. However, I later lived in Hawaii for two years and became familiar with the Haka again. It was often performed at ward parties, scouting trips and other community activities. Just imagine all the little primary boys doing the Haka with their shirts off. It was awesome.

Even more close to home was my son being born while we were living in Hawaii. As many new babies do, he would cry and cry and cry. Of course all the crying would drive my wife and I nuts. I finally resorted to taking one of his toys and doing my form of the Haka to get him to be quiet. It worked. This would often lead to my wife asking me to do the Haka to quiet my son down.

Thinking of this reminded me of a picture my wife took of my son dressed as a sumo at about 6 months old. One day I hope he’s doing the Haka for BYU football:

That a baby!!