On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers traveled to Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Jazz. Multiple BYU football players were in attendance, including sophomore wide receiver Jojo Phillips. Phillips has a personal connection to the Lakers: he was high school basketball teammates with Bronny James at Sierra Canyon High School.

Phillips played both football and basketball at Sierra Canyon High School. He played with James throughout their high school careers, and they graduated together as part of the 2023 graduating class.

After the game on Wednesday night, James signed his jersey and gave it to the BYU wide receiver.

Phillips, who is 6’5, was a very good basketball player. Phillips was getting a lot of early recruiting attention from big-time football programs after his freshman year of high school. Phillips earned scholarship offers from the likes of LSU and Oregon.

Then, COVID-19 shut down high school football in California and Phillips took some time away from football to focus on basketball. Eventually, Phillips returned to the gridiron and he started picking up scholarship offers again. That’s when BYU entered the picture and offered Phillips a scholarship.

Phillips is coming off the best season of his young BYU career. After redshirting in 2023, Phillips was a fixture in the wide receiver rotation in 2024. He finished the season with 10 receptions for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns.

After the Jazz-Lakers game, BYU wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake took to social media and poked fun at BYU wide receiver Keelan Marion, who was also in attendance. “I can only imagine [Keelan Marion] talking all game about he ‘could made that play!'”

Marion responded to Sitake, saying he “definitely would have had about 15” points.

The BYU football program is just two weeks away from the start of 2025 Spring camp.