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Provo • Teammates are referring to forward Braiden Shaw as the garbage collector on BYU's basketball team because of the sophomore's penchant for corralling rebounds and loose balls and turning them into quick points.
It's better than being called the second-most popular BYU athlete from the town of Eagle, Idaho, the 6-foot-9, 210-pound Shaw says with a laugh.
Of course, the most popular is quarterback Tanner Mangum, who guided the Cougars to a 24-21 win over Wyoming in the Poinsettia Bowl. Mangum is also a sophomore in terms of eligibility, but is a year older than Shaw and graduated from Eagle High a year before Shaw did.
"Tanner is a good guy, and it was fun to grow up with him," Shaw said. "We were on the same basketball team, so I got to play with him, hang out with him. It has been fun watching him play so well on the football field there, and here."
But while Mangum arrived at BYU with plenty of hype and expectations, Shaw joined the Cougar men's basketball team with little fanfare after a church mission to Sacramento, Calif. He played sparingly his freshman season, averaging 2.9 minutes per game, but is getting considerably more playing time in 2016-17.
Shaw figures to be a factor, seeing as how he is averaging 7.7 minutes per game and has surprisingly been called on more often than freshman Payton Dastrup, a top-100 recruit out of Mountain View High in Mesa, Ariz.
"Braiden does two things really, really well," said BYU coach Dave Rose. "One is he executes what we do. He knows our stuff. Very seldom is he out of position. And then he is a great second-chance guy, a really good offensive rebounder with the ability to give you another possession on the miss. … His ability to fit with the other four guys, no matter who they are, allows him to stay out there."
Shaw has benefitted because Kyle Davis suffered a season-ending knee injury, Elijah Bryant has been in and out of the lineup with a sore knee and Jamal Aytes has been ill and missed the past two games. Also, Dastrup has taken awhile to get back in playing shape after a mission to Panama.
"We are having a hard time finding where the best place for Payton is," Rose said. "We recruited him as a big guy that could really shoot — high post shots, three-point shots in the corner, especially. He's really good. He's a good face-up scoring big guy. He's a different guy [now]. He's just a lot bigger. And we have had him kind of in that five spot, and he has been buried behind a few guys."
Rose said he would like to see Dastrup push Shaw for more minutes at power forward as he gets more active on the perimeter, "and right now he's just not ready for that. Hopefully he can progress to it."
Shaw already has, although he admits he needs to build confidence in his offensive game so he can be relied on as a first-option scoring threat — not just an offensive rebounder.
"I feel like right now I am scrappy and hard-working, all that good stuff," Shaw said. "But I would love to settle down in the post and make some moves, and just have more confidence to do what I can do down there."
Twitter: @drewjay