BYU got a bit more battle-tested Wednesday night.
The Cougars bounced back from another slow start to survive a feisty TCU squad 76-70 at the Marriott Center, moving to 16-1 on the season and remaining unbeaten at 4-0 in Big 12 play.
3 takeaways
Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before: BYU had to dig out of yet another first-half hole. Continuing the season’s most frustrating tradition, the Cougars started slow and had to play catch-up to take down the upstart Horned Frogs.
BYU trailed by six points at halftime after opening the night shooting 28.1% from the field and 9.1% from 3-point range — no, that’s not a typo. The Cougars missed their first eight triples before Rob Wright III finally drained one.
But as is always the case, BYU rallied in the latter frame, averaging 1.48 points per possession down the stretch to erase an eventual 9-point deficit and win by six.
In all, the Cougars shot 35.3% from the field, 20.8% from long distance and made 23 of 29 free throws.
The “Brig 3″ of Wright, Richie Saunders and AJ Dybantsa accounted for 58 of BYU’s 76 points, with Mihailo Boskovic providing a timely eight points off the bench.
Perhaps BYU was still recovering from a hard-fought rivalry win at Utah this past weekend, or maybe the Cougars had simply overlooked TCU a bit before Saturday’s critical matchup at No. 15 Texas Tech. The inconsistent, questionable officiating Wednesday definitely didn’t help anyone either.
But there’s a lesson to be learned here: You just can’t discount anyone in the Big 12 gauntlet, no matter what.
AJ Dybansta had a “flu game” in the second half. Dybantsa came into the night dealing with an illness, but what he ended up doing in spite of his health was pretty sick.
During a six-minute stretch in the second half, BYU’s freshman phenom took over the game by pouring in 17 points — at the start of his rampage, the Cougars trailed by eight points, and by the end, they were winning by six.
Dybantsa finished with 25 points and six rebounds, notching his 10th consecutive 20-point game and joining Jimmer Fredette, Danny Ainge, Michael Smith, Devin Durrant and Tyler Haws as the only BYU players to post so many consecutive such scoring performances.
BYU won this game on the glass. For as rough a night it was offensively, the Cougars dominated the rebounding battle by a 51-36 margin.
In the second half alone, BYU had 17 more rebounds than TCU.
Of BYU’s 51 total rebounds, 21 came on the offensive glass, leading to 24 second-chance points — a true luxury in the 6-point win.
Keba Keita led the way with 10 rebounds, Khadim Mboup grabbed eight off the bench and Wright, Saunders and Kennard Davis each added six boards apiece.
