Looking through a creative lens, you can find a connection to almost everything, and that includes the recent struggles of the BYU basketball team, the near disaster of Apollo 13, and Houston.

It is nearly 56 years since the spacecraft ran into trouble on its mission to the moon. It will also be 45½ hours between BYU’s 99-92 loss at Oklahoma State and the time the No. 16 Cougars tip off against No. 8 Houston in Provo on Saturday (8:30 p.m. MST, ESPN).

BYU’s journey is not a life-threatening drama that the astronauts on board Apollo 13 faced, but the Cougars do share a scenario of having an unexpected problem show up that threatens their mission, with limited time to fix it.

After an oxygen tank exploded, the astronauts of Apollo 13 had six days to chart a course back to Earth before they would run out of air. Losers in four of their last five games, BYU has six weeks to breathe life back into its high hopes for the NCAA Tournament.

The crisis facing Apollo 13 was technical. BYU’s issue is mostly mental. The Cougars need an identity. They need to come to terms with what kind of team they want to be and then go be the best version of it.

In recent weeks, the defense has weakened, critical rebounds have become elusive, and the gap has widened between shot taking and shot making. The guys haven’t quit. The fight is still there, but when playing with wounded confidence, their hesitancy to connect, react and respond is illuminated and exposed.

As opposing Big 12 defenses have shown, the Cougars need more than the Big 3 and yet they need more from them at the same time. AJ Dybantsa, Richie Saunders and Rob Wright III are the engines that make BYU go.

On any given night, any one of them can steal the show, as Dybantsa did with 36 points at Oklahoma State. Saunders scored 33 last Saturday at Kansas — but BYU lost both games and it has been a while since all three have played big on the same night.

Likewise, consistency from Keba Keita and Kennard Davis is more than a desire — it is a requirement if this team is going to grow from good to great. Same goes for the bench.

Apollo 13 had brilliant minds working at Mission Control to guide them through their challenges. BYU coach Kevin Young has an army of qualified assistants to do the same for the Cougars.

A program facing a midseason identity crisis is sunk if its liability is a lack of talent. That is not the case for BYU. This is a historic ensemble of gifted performers who are still adjusting to playing with each other — and for each other.

The Cougars have 10 games left in the regular season to pull it all together. If it takes all 10 to solidify an identity capable of contending in the Big Dance, so be it. Young didn’t put this roster together to fight for a fictitious February championship. It is all about March.

When astronaut John Swigert informed Mission Control of the unexpected development on board Apollo 13, he said, “OK, Houston, I believe we’ve had a problem here.”

Actor Tom Hanks jazzed up the phrase in the 1995 movie “Apollo 13″ with, “Houston, we have a problem.”

For BYU on Saturday, Houston IS the problem.

At 20-2, the Big 12’s top defensive squad poses a galactic challenge for a team just trying to get back into orbit. A loss to Houston for BYU (17-5) won’t be unexpected. A win would tweak the current narrative, but if the Cougars find their identity during the process, it could change everything.

The nation celebrated when the astronauts of Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa on April 17, 1970. The crew never made it to the moon, and many feared they wouldn’t make it back to Earth either — but they did — with help from Houston.

Whether BYU reaches the Final Four for the first time in program history is still up in the air. Recent developments have many believing they won’t make it. However, this crew of Cougars are going to exhaust every possibility to pull it off — and Houston can help … by helping BYU find themselves on Saturday night.

Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.

For the third time in the past four weeks, BYU has stumbled in the AP Top 25 poll.

Following losses against No. 1 Arizona and No. 14 Kansas, the 17-4 Cougars have fallen three spots to No. 16 in Monday’s latest rankings.

BYU is joined by five other Big 12 squads in this week’s poll — No. 1 Arizona, No. 7 Iowa State, No. 8 Houston, No. 11 Kansas and No. 13 Texas Tech.

In KenPom, the Cougars rank No. 15, while sitting at No. 15 in NET as well.

BYU will look to get back in the win column Wednesday against unranked Oklahoma State before returning back to Provo for a critical matchup against No. 8 Houston.

Editor’s note: Jackson Payne is a voter for the AP Top 25 poll.

LAWRENCE, Kansas — After scoring a career-high 33 points and looking like a future professional basketball player in No. 13 BYU’s 90-82 loss to No. 14 Kansas on Saturday, senior Richie Saunders said the Cougars have been in this position several times before throughout his stellar four-year career and aren’t about to panic.

“Lots that we need to improve on, and we will, and I am excited to continue to move forward,” said Saunders after BYU dropped to 1-2 all-time against KU in Allen Fieldhouse. “I’ve been in this position many times throughout my career, and I know the flip side of what is waiting for us.”

What is waiting for the Cougars (17-4, 5-3) immediately is another tough Big 12 road game at Oklahoma State (15-6, 3-5) in Stillwater on Wednesday (7 p.m. MST, Fox Sports 1), a matchup that looks more difficult than before after the Cowboys dropped Utah 81-69 Saturday at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.

By way of comparison, BYU beat Utah 89-84 at the home of the Utes on Jan. 10.

Losses to the No. 1 team in the country, Arizona, and to perennial power Kansas in front of 16,300 crazed fans at one of the toughest places to play in college sports can be forgiven and probably will be, for the most part, when the polls come out Monday.

BYU dropped from No. 14 to No. 15 in the NET rankings, and are at No. 15 in KenPom.

A third straight loss would be cause for concern for a team with its sights set on a long NCAA Tournament run. The Cougars haven’t lost three straight since falling to No. 14 Houston, Texas Tech and TCU last January.

“We just gotta figure it out,” said sophomore point guard Rob Wright, who added 18 points and six assists and somewhat regained his shooting touch with a 7-of-16 effort after going 3 of 16 in the 86-83 loss to No. 1 Arizona last Monday. “We were just motivated to get a win on the road. We weren’t really worried about the storylines.”

Of course, Saturday’s chief storyline revolved around the two players expected to be taken first and second in June’s NBA draft, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and KU’s Darryn Peterson. The Kansas freshman clearly outplayed the BYU freshman before leaving the game with 16 minutes remaining with cramping issues.

But BYU coach Kevin Young has more issues to deal with than the fact that his highly compensated star hasn’t looked the part of a No. 1 pick against elite competition. Dybantsa was 6 of 24 at the Marriott Center in the loss to Arizona.

Most notably, Young has to figure out how to beat the very best teams on BYU’s schedule and pick up a signature win or two in February. There are plenty of opportunities left, beginning Saturday when the Cougars host defending national runner-up Houston, which is No. 5 in Kenpom and No. 9 in the NET.

“We are a battle-tested group, and we are a couple shots away from being able to have some of those (signature wins),” Young said. “For me, that just gets more fire in the belly to get it right.”

The Cougars also need to get their first halves right against the best teams on their schedule. The website Cougarstats.com pointed out on X Saturday that BYU has been outscored 248-191 in first halves by KenPom top 30 teams, and has outscored them 267-229 in second halves.

BYU scores by half vs Kenpom top 30 teams:

1st: 191-248 (-57)
2nd: 267-229 (+38)

That’s a net difference of 95 points between halves. That’s nearly 16 points per game.

— CougarStats (@CougarStats) February 1, 2026

“Most of our struggles in the first half have been execution-related,” Young said. “I think that was the case (against Kansas). It is hard to overcome 9 of 12 (shooting) from 3. … At the end of the day, it is shot-making.

“We are shooting the 3 at a much higher clip in the second half than we are in the first. That’s something that you really can’t necessarily fix.”

One issue Saturday was that Southern Illinois transfer Kennard Davis Jr, arguably BYU’s best defender, picked up his second foul just four minutes and four seconds into the game and had to be replaced by Mihailo Boskovic, who is a decent rim protector but just a so-so on-ball defender.

Even legendary Kansas coach Bill Self said the Jayhawks’ hot shooting start was an anomaly.

“To go 9 of 12 from 3, obviously, that’s great,” Self said. “But it is not real.”

So BYU trailed by as many as 21 points in the first half, and by 20 at halftime, before making the Saunders-led rally in the second half. It was BYU’s second-largest halftime deficit.

The Cougars came back from 21 down against Clemson to beat the Tigers in overtime on Dec. 9 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but doing that against a good KU team on its home floor proved to be an insurmountable task.

“We have to make sure that we’re doing everything in our power individually and collectively to generate good offense in first halves of ball games,” Young said.

Wednesday night in Stillwater would be a good time to start.