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Health permitting, Chase Hansen has promised to be there for Utah's game Wednesday night against BYU.
He'll come down on his crutches if he has to, he said, to shake hands and talk for a minute with Nick Emery, an emerging shooting guard for the Cougars. And then he'll wear his Utah red and cheer for Jordan Loveridge — a guy he was once assigned to guard when he and Emery's Lone Peak team played Loveridge's West Jordan team in 2012.
The twisted-up ties are pretty normal for a BYU-Utah rivalry rich with connections and storylines. Loveridge, the state's top-ranked player in 2012, and Emery, the state's top-ranked guard in 2013, are two of the fun ones to watch this year — especially for Hansen, who has played both.
"I think it's cool because they both were big time guys back in high school," said Hansen, a freshman on Utah's football team. "They've both kind of panned out. Jordan's solidified himself, and Nick has started his career off pretty well. It's fun to see them both playing well at this level."
Scheduled to tip at 8 p.m. at Huntsman Center, this rivalry has plenty of "knew-em-back-when."
The Cougars have seven Utah natives on the roster, and Utah has five. And each team spent plenty of time recruiting the other team's guys back when they were duking it out in high school gyms.
With Emery's return from an LDS Mission this year, the rivalry game will feature two top in-state prospects that committed within literally days of one another in August of 2011.
Larry Krystkowiak remembered it well: He had just secured Loveridge, his first big in-state recruit who was, at the time, a double-double machine for the Jaguars. A few days later, he got a joint call from Emery and teammate T.J. Haws.
"We lost out on him," Krystkowiak said, smiling. "He called me in the afternoon and let me know he's going to BYU, then put one of his buddies on the phone, and he's coming to BYU, too. That's the way she goes."
The separate paths have worked out for Loveridge and Emery.
Each is his team's second-leading scorer at the moment, with Loveridge averaging 16 points for the Utes and Emery averaging 15.4. Loveridge is approaching Utah's top 20 all-time scoring list in his final year at Utah, and there's some reason to think Emery could eventually be in similar position, starting out as hot as he's been.
They played a few times: Emery's Lone Peak teams were 2-0 against Loveridge's Jaguars in the playoffs. Both times, Loveridge gave a strong effort: He averaged 28 points in the two losses, giving everything he had.
That's what Emery remembers about him: Loveridge was always "rising to the occasion."
"Jordan is one of the most competitive kids I know, just a guy who battles and battles and battles," Emery said. "He is having a great career up at the U., and I'm not surprised. He is playing really well right now."
The rivalry — in high school and in college — hasn't kept the two from having a casual friendship. Emery came up to watch a Utah football game, and Loveridge said they've hung out a handful of times.
That's not uncommon in the rivalry, which doesn't have clear lines drawn between the two programs. Utah's Brandon Miller played with Emery in AAU ball, and they also were opponents several times in the state tournament. Brekkott Chapman and Zac Seljaas were club teammates as well.
Some of the fiercest competition goes down in the offseason when no one is watching: Utah and BYU players occasionally meet at open gyms, and get a taste for what they can do.
"Having that closed-off environment with the extra competition and no one there to scrutinize it," Chapman said, "that's even better."
For both programs, in-state recruiting continues to be an important facet of the game: Utah's latest newcomers include Miller and Makol Mawien, Utahns who lit up the scoreboard in high school. South of Salt Lake County, BYU seems to have erected a fence around recruits — notably aside from Duke signee Frank Jackson, whom Utah also missed out on.
The ties between the programs continue to add intrigue to a rivalry that no longer has conference implications.
"There's certain things that bring more outta ya," Krystkowiak said. "It's really one of the cooler things we're able to do. It gets your adrenaline out to a different level."
The memories are fun to look back on, all the players admit. But they also look forward to making a few new ones as well.
"Being in this state and being around it, it's a great game to be a part of," Loveridge said. "They're great guys. They're fun to play."
Twitter: @kylegoon