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You know the lesser light, the wing man, the skilled-but-obscured player who gives every bit of effort for the greater cause, doing his business in the dark shadow behind a star who burns so bright that everyone on the outside recognizes him, only him — or in this case, himmer — by his first name?

"I am that guy," says Jackson Emery.

The eclipsee not the eclipser.

Emery is the other guard at BYU, the one not named Jimmer.

He's no scrub and he's not some no-talent hustler whose only contributions are bouncing his jaw on the court as he dives for loose balls and getting his beak busted while leaning into the opponent's best scorer night after night.

He's does more than haul garbage.

As Jimmer himself says, "Jackson can play."

Against the Rebels at UNLV, Emery hit key shots from distance and scored 22 points to help erase an early 10-point deficit and push the Cougars to victory. Against the Utes at the Huntsman Center, Emery dusted 5 of 7 attempts from beyond the arc, scoring 20, while breaking Danny Ainge's school record for career steals.

All of that, of course, led pretty much to nothing but postgame questions about … You-Know-Who.

In those two BYU wins, Fredette went for 39 and 47.

"An important thing I had to understand before this year even started was I had to know my role," Emery says. "Other guys accepted their roles, as well. You might score 20 points, but Jimmer's going to get 50. He's the one on SportsCenter, the spotlight's on him. … That's just how it is when you have an All-American on your team."

Sweet Polly Purebreds might accept those words at face value, while cynics find a bittersweet tone to them, sensing a thin thread of jealousy among a bunch of young lesser-known competitors who want their own recognition as the Cougars sit at 17-1.

But Emery modifies and mollifies the matter:

"You have to understand, we all have to understand, that we're all as important as Jimmer. We all have to step up and make big plays and hit big shots. Jimmer doesn't beat other teams, our team does."

It's just Jimmer's job to score most the points and get most the glory.

And the Cougars are OK with that.

Emery says he has seen and heard "no whining or complaining" among his teammates, and he singles that out as both a case of practicality and one of the team's promising aspects.

"Jimmer scored 47 the other night, but he made 16 of 28 shots, and he's shooting 48 percent from the floor," he says. "That's incredible for the kinds of shots he takes."

Another reason Emery and his teammates are willing to sacrifice to help Fredette look good is just plain human.

"He's one of the most humble, likable guys you could meet," Emery says. "When a guy's the man, the big man on campus, you think cocky and arrogant, but Jimmer's nothing like that."

Every once in a while, though, the man needs a little guidance, and when he does, Emery says he's the one who slaps Fredette upside the head with hard truth: "I know the kind of player Jimmer is, but if he doesn't play defense or hit an open guy with the pass, I let him know it. He trusts me, and he listens."

That sort of cred has come to Emery because he has played in the program now for four years, gaining a mix of basketball brains and showing the aforementioned grit. When he came to BYU in 2005-'06 as a star player out of Lone Peak High School, he quickly discovered the route to playing time arrived by way of offering tough defense. He took that on, as the career steals record suggests, and has played in nearly every game since.

His offense has come around the past two seasons, averaging better than 12 points as a junior and senior. And there's something else that's emerged, a trait that was evident in the win at UNLV: steeled nerve in the clutch.

"Jimmer and I were sick of losing down there [at Thomas & Mack]," he says. "We took it upon ourselves to hit big shots. We were thinking, 'We're not going to back down.' Anytime you're in a tough environment like that, it's easy to lose. There are a lot of negative thoughts that can cross your mind. So you know you've got to go make a play, right now, and get your team going. I try to be the guy who creates that spark."

Emery's role, apparently, is expansive enough to include that.

The way he figures it, he is more than a distant echo of the old funny Rod Hundley line, when Hundley bragged about the night, while playing for the Lakers, that he and Elgin Baylor combined for 63 points. (Baylor got 61 of them.)

Carrying Jimmer's jock is not part of Emery's job.

Saving it, at least on occasion, might be.

"Our guard line is talented and experienced," he says. "We're tough, versatile and dangerous. We are difficult to play against."

With emphasis on — but no envy in — the word … we.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com. s