BYU forward Noah Waterman drives past UCF Knights guard Darius Johnson at the Marriott Center in Provo on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. The Cougars prevailed in a nailbiter and will hit the road for a game Saturday against Oklahoma State in Stillwater.
Laura Seitz, Deseret News
As head coach of the New York Jets in 2002, Herm Edwards delivered an iconic quote that was as simple as it was profound.
“You play to win the game,” Edwards bellowed in a news conference in the Big Apple.
With a little more hyperbole and not quite as much passion, BYU basketball coach Mark Pope expressed roughly the same sentiment after the Cougars barely withstood UCF’s incredible comeback attempt in the final minute of Tuesday night’s 90-88 win over the Knights in front of 15,590 at the Marriott Center.
Don’t let another near-collapse in the second half take from the fact that BYU won, the coach said, using a lot more words than Edwards did.
Neither Pope nor Jaxson Robinson nor Trevin Knell were interested in talking about another second-half meltdown for the Cougars in a Big 12 game. BYU won again, and that’s all that matters — for now, they said.
“It was a gritty win. It was a very ugly win, but we will take whatever we can get, especially in this league,” said Robinson, the game’s hero after making 12 of 13 free-throw attempts. “I mean, this win means a lot to us, especially getting into the (above .500) win column.”
Added Pope: “I think that is the nature of this league. … You don’t ever see teams win by big margins. It is just that the teams are too competitive, and it is awesome. UCF was heroic in the last four minutes. They made incredible shots, but that’s what Big 12 teams do. They just do really special things.”
The Cougars (6-5, 18-6) are above .500 in the Big 12 for the first time, and if anyone would have predicted that kind of record in mid-February for this team that is pretty much the same team that went 19-15 last year, their sanity would have been questioned.
“I am so proud of the guys,” Pope said. “It was just epic. What a brilliant performance from our team. I am so happy.”
BYU dropped from No. 8 to No. 9 in the NET rankings, and from No. 12 to No. 14 in Kenpom.com. It is now 6-6 in Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 games. The Cougars have overachieved in almost every measure. And those are the numbers that really matter when it comes to selection and seeding for the NCAA Tournament.
“That team threw us their best punch and we were able to respond,” Knell said.
So credit has to be given where credit is due. BYU’s last two wins came when it was outscored in the second half. The Cougars are learning how to finish, albeit rather painfully.
But what about this propensity to blow big second-half leads? It happened again Tuesday night, in what has become a pattern for the 2023-24 Cougars.
BYU’s second-half defense — or lack thereof — has become a big problem.
Central Florida scored 62 points in the second half, after missing its first five shots, misfiring on its first eight possessions, and scoring just 26 points in the first half. Heck, the Knights scored 27 points in the final 4:10, more than they scored the entire first half.
Some of UCF’s 3-pointers in the last minute were borderline miraculous, but before that, the visitors overcame a 48-29 deficit with a plethora of dunks, easy drives to the rim, and wide-open shots. The Knights outscored the Cougars 45-15 in second-chance points (18-6) and points off turnovers (27-9).
UCF looked far better than the 187th-ranked offense in the country, or the team that scored only 58 points in Orlando against the Cougars a month ago, and BYU helped them do it.
“I would just say they are super, super physical. Like, this is one of the most physical teams in the Big 12. They are also really, really big. They are 6-11, 6-8, 6-8 pretty much across the board,” Knell said. “They also have really talented guards. They are a little different than other teams by the way they are able to turn guys over.”
Second-half explosions against BYU are nothing new. Texas Tech (53), Baylor (48), Oklahoma (48) and Cincinnati (47) all put up big second-half numbers in four of BYU’s five Big 12 losses. Defense-minded Houston had 34, BYU 34, in the red Cougars’ 75-68 win.
The Cougars have led at halftime in nine of their 11 Big 12 games, and been tied in another (Oklahoma). They’ve had leads of at least 17 points in six of 11 conference games.
When Kansas State coach Jerome Tang said after the Wildcats’ 72-66 loss at BYU that the Cougars always allow opponents to get back into games because of the way they play, he wasn’t lying.
UCF coach Johnny Dawkins was more diplomatic, even after BYU tied a school record by making 40 free throws, on 46 attempts.
“We have to be better. I have to look at the tape to watch every play. It is hard during the game because it is moving so fast,” Dawkins said of the 46-26 free-throw disparity. “But for me, we have to make sure we guard without fouling. That’s a big emphasis that we have with our team. Play hard but don’t foul. … Some of them we had to foul at the end, coming down the stretch. That probably ran their free throw number up as well.”
Dawkins echoed what several other Big 12 coaches have said this season — that BYU plays offense unlike any other team in the league and preparing for the Cougars is difficult.
“They have so many weapons out there. They are probably one of the few teams in the league that has 3-point shooting threats at all five positions. So that makes them very difficult to guard,” he said. “So absolutely, that is hard to prepare for, because the floor is so spaced, because you have to stay out there with all those shooters all over the place.”
Having won six of their last nine, and two straight, BYU travels to Stillwater, Oklahoma, this weekend to take on last-place Oklahoma State (2-9, 10-14) at noon MST on Saturday.