FORT WORTH, Texas — Jimmer Fredette didn’t gaze into the stands very often during BYU’s 79-56 win over TCU. If he did, he would have found plenty to make him smile. No. 32 jerseys dotted the crowd. During pregame warm-ups, fans crowded the front row stands to snap photos of the star. After the game, a few hundred more crowded the same space and took cell phone video and flashed photos while he did a TV interview. Security was needed to help BYU get past a crowd to the team bus. Grown men with duffel bags of deflated basketballs ask him to sign as many of them as possible. One tells a BYU official shooing them away that they have no plans to sell them, but there’s no promise that the hand reaching for another ball inside the bag didn’t have its fingers crossed. “Jimmer: Kiss my baby!” read a sign held up by a couple who were, yes, holding a baby behind one of the baskets at TCU’s Daniel-Meyer Coliseum on Saturday. Fans waved disembodied Jimmer heads. A couple of Texans — the nerve! — even played off one of the state’s slogans, warning TCU: “Don’t mess with Jimmer.” He sees the signs — literal and figurative — signifying his new celebrity, he admits. Rarely does he acknowledge them, instead electing to go about his business on the floor. Aren’t conference road games supposed to be hostile atmospheres? Most often, it’s not the case for Fredette. BYU, a Mormon institution and one of college athletics’ only truly national universities, has fans everywhere, but they outnumbered and out cheered TCU’s fans on Saturday. “It’s been like this pretty much everywhere we’ve been going,” Fredette said. Most often, Fredette is the catalyst. This is The Jimmer Effect, produced by The Jimmer Show, and it’s in the thick of a winter tour the Cougars hope will crescendo into an April run at the national title. Seconds into the game — in TCU’s arena, remember — a boisterous “B-Y-U” chant dominated the stadium noise. The same occurred in the game’s closing minutes. “It’s a really great experience for our players,” said BYU coach Dave Rose. “I think it’s a tribute to this team, and the fact that it’s the last time through this league.” It was the sixth time this season a BYU road game sold out, and even TCU officials admitted the Jimmer Effect was on high in Saturday’s game. If there was any anger or annoyance at BYU’s impending move from the Mountain West Conference into independence, it didn’t show against the Horned Frogs. The Horned Frogs’ student section was full, but the rest of the capacity crowd — 7,258, the first sellout for the school since Nov. 23, 2004 and the third-biggest crowd in school history — wasn’t drawn in by TCU’s 10-18 record and one conference win in 13 tries

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The Jimmer Show makes a stop in Texas