The men’s basketball roster has been updated online. The Cougars must find a way to fill the shoes of do-it-all guard/forward Lee Cummard, who is currently a member of the Phoenix Suns NBA Summer League squad.

While replacing Cummard’s production and leadership will be difficult—he was the team’s leading scorer, shot blocker and free throw shooter and was second in assists and rebounds—BYU will have a very experienced roster in 2009-10. The Cougars return four starters including first-team All-MWC junior point guard Jimmer Fredette (16.2 ppg, 4.1 apg), third-team All-MWC senior forward Jonathan Tavernari (15.7 ppg, 7.2 rpg), junior guard Jackson Emery (7.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg), who was named to the 2009 MWC All-Defensive Team, and senior center Chris Miles (7.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg).

Also back are BYU’s top-four bench players from 2008-09. Sophomore guard Charles Abouo (2.9 ppg, 1.9 rpg in 08-09) is gaining international experience playing with the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) National Team this summer. Senior point guard Lamont Morgan, Jr. is also back after averaging 3.6 points and 1.8 assists and providing energy and a change of pace off the bench.

Post players James Anderson and Noah Hartsock will be sophomores in 2009-10. Anderson showed great potential in 2008-09 averaging 2.5 points and 1.6 rebounds while adding 15 blocks in 27 games. He had a 10-point, seven-rebound and five-block game against Boise State and scored a career-best 16 points to go with seven boards against Colorado State at home.

Hartsock came on strong at the end of the season, coming up big late in the season. He had seven points and seven boards in a comeback win at San Diego State. In the MWC tournament against the Aztecs he had seven points, five boards and two blocks and in the NCAA Tournament against Texas A&M he posted a career-best 10 points.

Also returning are sophomore guard Michael Loyd, Jr., a contributor off the bench in 2007-08 who redshirted last season, and freshman guard/forward Brock Zylstra, who redshirted in 2006-07 before serving a two-year Church mission in New Zealand. Loyd, Jr., averaged 2.2 points and 1.2 assists while shooting .381 from downtown in 2007-08.

In addition to the returners the BYU coaching staff welcomes three recruits with winning pedigrees. Junior transfer Logan Magnusson comes to the Cougars from Salt Lake Community College where he helped the Bruins win the 2009 NJCAA Division I national title. At Wasatch High he won back-to-back state titles.

Tyler Haws is a freshman out of Lone Peak High School where he was Utah’s Mr. Basketball as a junior and senior, only the second player in state history to achieve that honor. He led Lone Peak to state titles as a sophomore and junior and a second-place finish his senior season.

Brandon Davies is a freshman out of Provo High School where he earned first-team all state honors his senior year. He helped lead Provo to state titles his sophomore and junior years and his senior season the Bulldogs took second.

From the 2008-09 team, BYU returns 74.5 percent of its point production, 76.3 percent of its rebounding production, 78.2 percent of its assists, 85.0 percent of its steals and 84.7 percent of its made threes.

Sophomore-to-be Charles Abouo is a playing for his native country’s national team this summer, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). He is currently training with the team and playing in exhibition games in preparation for the FIBA Africa Championships in Libya from Aug. 5-15.

The top three teams from the FIBA Africa Championships will qualify for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey. Cote d’Ivoire is a member of Group A with Libya, Nigeria and South Africa. 

Cote d’Ivoire is making its 19th appearance in the biannual event. The team finished second in 1978 and 1980 and first in 1981 and 1985. Cote d’Ivoire’s best finish since 1985 was fifth in 1989. The team has qualified for every tournament since 1978.

Continue to visit the BYU men’s basketball blog and BYUCougars.com for updates on Charles and Jonathan as they represent their countries this summer.

Andy Katz, a senior college basketball writer for ESPN.com, wrote a great blog entry on Monday about coach Rose's battle with cancer. We're all grateful Coach is doing well. Check it out.

Senior-to-be Jonathan Tavernari is participating with the Brazilian National team for the second-straight summer. In 2008 Tavernari was the only non-professional to play for Brazil in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Tavernari has been practicing with the team in Sao Paulo since June 28 preparing for the Lusofonia Games from July 13 to 19 in Lisbon, Portugal. The Lusofonia Games is a multinational multi-sport event that includes for Lusophone (Portuguese speaking) countries and others with significant Portuguese communities. Countries that have participated in the past include Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Portugal, India, Macau, China and others.

Brazil will gear up for the Lusofonia games with exhibitions from July 10 to 12 against Angola, Finland and Portugal. The team is also scheduled to play in the Super Four Tournament in Argentina on Aug. 3 and 4, the Tuto Marchand Cup from Aug. 18 to 20 and the Tournament of the Americas from Aug. 26 to Sept. 6.

For more information on the national team check out the official site of Brazilian Basketball.. The only problem is that it is in Portuguese. A great opportunity for Cougar fans to polish their foreign language skills.

Continue to check BYUCougars.com for updates throughout the summer.

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We've already posted about Lee playing with the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Summer League but here is a story about the roster being announced.

Former Sun 'Thunder Dan' Dan Majerle will coach the squad that will include draft picks Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin and current Suns Alando Tucker, Robin Lopez and Goran Dragic.

Here is the story from the

official website of the Phoenix Suns.

We've just made it easier for you to follow BYU athletics with the exclusive BYU athletics page on Twitter.

You can receive updates — or Tweets — via Twitter through the web at the exclusive Twitter page for BYU athletics, on your mobile phone, via instant messaging (IM) or through e-mail.

Cougar fans can add the BYUathletics Twitter page to their own blog, Facebook page or other social networking site.

Need a lesson on Twitter? Here are the basics:

What is it?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

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Twitter allows you to customize how you receive messages. Get alerts via the web, text messages, instant messages and e-mail. It's up to you!

How do I sign up?

Go here, create a username and password. After you sign up, you will need to go the BYU athletics Twitter page and click "Follow" in the upper left-hand corner under the BYU logo.

As announced earlier this week on BYUCougars.com, Lee Cummard will play for the Phoenix Suns NBA Summer League Team. As versatile as he is, I think he will make a good impression on the Suns brass and hopefully get a chance to earn a spot on the team.

Click here for NBA Summer League information.

In related news, Cummard was named to the inaugural All-Undrafted Team assembled by college basketball analyst Steve Lavin. Cummard earned third-team honors. There are a lot of nice players mentioned, many of whom have signed to play in the NBA Summer League.

Check out the commercial for the basketball team. Here is a note about the commercial from Bill Hoops, the marketing guru for the team:

Together with Matt Slack Productions (music), Issimo Productions (filming) and Canasian Media (editing) we put together this commercial to inspire fans to buy season tickets for next season. It showed during March Madness and during the NBA Playoffs. The music is original work. The footage is from the Red camera at a couple games last year. The editing is spectacular. Thanks everyone, especially the Cougars for highlights worthy of hotness.

If you've been following us online, you'd know that Jimmer Fredette was recently inducted in the Capital District Hall of Fame in New York. Not bad for someone about to enter his junior year of college.

After doing a little more research about Jimmer's impact at BYU in his two years so far as a Cougar, I came up with a few tidbits.

- The first Cougar point guard since Marty Haws in 1989-90 to earn first-team all-conference honors. Haws was a senior that season and ironically, his son Tyler will be a freshman on the team this fall.

- Going back even further in the history books, Fredette is the first Cougar sophomore to earn first-team all-conference honors since Michael Smith in 1986-87. Only nine other Cougars have earn all-conference honors as sophomores: Danny Ainge (78-79), Kresimir Cosic (70-71), Kari Liimo (66-67), Terry Tebbs (54-55), Joe Nelson (47-48), Randy Clark (47-48), Floyd Millet (33-34), Jay Whitman (33-34) and Elwood Romney (31-32).

- Fredette has scored 780 points in his first two seasons, coming off the bench as a freshman and starting 32 of 33 games as a sophomore. The only other Cougars in the last decade to score more points in their freshman and sophomore seasons were Trent Plaisted with 824 in 2005-06 and 2006-07 and Mark Bigelow with 866 points in 1998-99 and 2001-02 (served a two-year mission in between). Fredette started 32 of 68 games in his first two years while Bigelow started 57 of 58 and Plaisted started 62 of 63 games. Fredette's sophomore scoring average of 16.2 points is the highest of the three.

Check out this video prepared by our video services coordinator, Jordan Feinauer, for the hall of fame induction ceremony.

Click to watch the video.