New coach Kevin Young’s BYU basketball team had to sit on last week’s humbling and lopsided loss at Providence College for a good eight days, and on Wednesday night the Cougars took their frustrations out on struggling Fresno State.
After what Young called Wednesday “one of our most important stretches of our season, to date,” a series of practices he called “very ugly, honestly,” BYU returned to its former self with a 95-67 rout in front of 15,950 at the Marriott Center.
The relatively easy win against a lower-level Mountain West team that dropped to 3-7 improved BYU’s record to 7-2, but more importantly it injected more confidence into the squad, a word that Young uses a lot. Part of his mantra as a coach is to get his guys to believe in themselves, even after losses such as the 83-64 drubbing by the Friars in Rhode Island.
Playing without 6-foot-9 freshman sensation Egor Demin, who will be out another week and a half with a knee contusion he sustained early in the game last Tuesday against Providence, the Cougars clicked on offense as well as they have all season. They shot 55% from the field and made 14 of 34 3-point attempts.
“We played well. I thought tonight was the first night where we had more than one shooter clicking on all cylinders. … I just thought the ball was popping out there. We are a team that if you make a mistake we can really make you pay.
“Tonight we were able to do that more than we weren’t, which I loved. Without Egor, who has been the driver in a lot of those 3s in terms of creating, tonight it was everybody else.”
Young said the genesis for the improved play came from a regrouping of sorts after the game back East, a loss that came on the heels of two strong performances in San Diego in an overtime loss to No. 23 Ole Miss and a blowout win over North Carolina State.
“I thought they handled it extremely well, and I told the players this: I am not a guy that is going to put things on the players all the time. Me and my staff have to look ourselves in the mirror. Are we doing the right things?” Young said.
“So we came in very adamant about what we want to get better at. … We kinda put the flag in the ground on what we want to be about defensively, especially,” he continued. “And once we made that declaration, the guys’ attention to detail and competitive spirit to that specific thing was really good.”
Sure, there were a few things to nit-pick about, such as the way the Cougars struggled at times against Fresno State’s full-court pressure. BYU committed 17 turnovers, 10 more than the overmatched visitors.
And BYU’s defense in the early going left a bit to be desired, as Fresno State matched the Cougars shot-for-shot the first 8-10 minutes.
But overall, it was a dominating performance one would expect from a team picked to finish in the top half of the rugged Big 12.
“Some games I think we have handled (pressure) extremely well. In other games, in stretches, we haven’t. Even tonight, there were stretches where we turned it over and there were stretches where it is do or die for them. They either give up a dunk or a 3 or they turn us over,” Young said.
“So I think we can be a little bit more sound. We have enough shooting and enough guys at the rim that can put a lot of fear in people if they pick us up, not just full court but when you start doing traps at half-court and three-quarter court with the amount of shooting that we have, that’s a dangerous thing to do. So I think we will do enough to scare teams into not doing it the whole game.”
One of those shooters is senior Trevin Knell, who posted the first double-double of his career with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds, which tied Fouss Traore for game-high honors in that category.
Knell reasoned that he got 10 boards because Demin wasn’t in there to grab a few away from him, but also because he played with an edge after the Providence fiasco.
“Our practices were super competitive. I thought we found our edge again. Eight days is a long time to sit on a loss like that,” Knell said.
Added Richie Saunders, who chipped in 17 points: “That (Providence) game, that was a big gut-check, right?”
Young was not aware that Knell posted a double-double, and after finding out about it he suggested that the stat sheet be framed. Knell also added two assists and three rebounds.
“I am still tripping on the layups that he made, to be honest with you. … Trev is awesome. He does everything right. He is one of our captains. He knows what we want to do and does it at a high level out there,” Young said. “So, we are just happy for any success that he has.”
As previously noted, the Cougars’ defense wasn’t good the first half of the first half, and Fresno State kept it close through the first eight minutes, even leading 20-19 when Mor Seck flushed an uncontested dunk with 11:45 left in the half.
After a timeout, BYU got cooking on both ends. A 13-3 run gave the Cougars some breathing room, highlighted by freshman Elijah Crawford’s scoring drive and big man Traore’s 3-pointer after a play had broken down.
The Cougars finished the first half on a 25-7 run to take a 44-27 lead at the break.
BYU shot 56% in the first half, including a 7 of 18 effort from beyond the arc.
At halftime, the nation’s No. 1 prep basketball recruit, AJ Dybantsa, was introduced to the Marriott Center crowd, which gave him a standing ovation. Dybantsa even appeared at the postgame news conference to answer a couple of questions about his signing and reception in Provo.
“I mean, it was good. It is just like a family atmosphere here, like I have said,” Dybantsa said. “So I mean it was good that everybody was supporting and caring and loving.”
