LOGAN — With an arduous Mountain West Conference schedule before the BYU Cougars, they couldn't have picked a better tune-up—the chance to play a good team, Utah State, in a hostile environment.
That was the Cougars' task on Saturday night, and, predictably, the Cougars were booed lustily when they took the floor against in-state rival USU.
Fortunately for BYU, guard Terrell Lyday responded. The 6-foot-3 junior scored a career-high 35 points — 24 in the second half — to lead his team to an 82-73 victory over the Aggies at the Smith Spectrum.
It was easily BYU's best road performance of the season, and the win snapped the Aggies' 13-game home court winning streak. USU had won 45 of its previous 47 games in Logan.
Before more than 10,000 rowdy fans, Lyday felt almost as if he were all alone — in a zone of his own.
"Every time down the floor, it seemed my teammates were looking for me," Lyday said. "My job was to hit the big shot. It was like I was in the gym by myself."
Lyday has been battling the flu bug all week, but he didn't let that slow him down. Saturday's effort came on the heels of a 22-point outing against Cal-Irvine on Wednesday.
Forward Silester Rivers said it wasn't hard for either him or Lyday to be emotionally charged against the Aggies, explaining that USU fans were heckling them during pre-game warm-ups. Plus, Lyday had played high school ball against Aggie forward Shawn Daniels.
If that weren't enough, just days earlier here, USU had destroyed Fresno State, a team Lyday is very familiar with. He hails from Fresno and played community college ball at Fresno City College, where Steve Cleveland coached before arriving at BYU.
Utah State simply did not have an answer for Lyday.
"Those guys didn't have a clue as to how to stop him," said Rivers, who is Lyday's roommate and has been stricken by the flu bug as well. Rivers contributed 15 points off the bench.
Lyday hit 11-of-17 shots from the floor, including 6-of-9 3-pointers. He also added four rebounds and three steals. It was the most points scored by a BYU player since Russell Larson had 36 against Nicholls State in 1993.
Cleveland recruited Lyday to Provo with the intention of him replacing departed freshman star Mark Bigelow, who is currently serving an LDS mission. Bigelow averaged 15 points a game last season, and going into Saturday's contest, Lyday was averaging, well, 15 points.
A year ago, Bigelow put up some impressive offensive numbers (33 versus Washington State), but Lyday's performance against Utah State produced a new result.
"I think the biggest difference is that we won," Cleveland said. "Mark had a number of big scoring games in losing efforts and tonight we were able to have a big scoring night in a winning effort."
Time after time, Lyday took Utah State's crowd out of the game with big shots. He closed out the first half with a 3-pointer to lift BYU to a 40-28 advantage. Later, when the Aggies closed the Cougars' lead to four at 47-43 with about 15 minutes remaining, Lyday came down the floor and drilled another 3-pointer to silence USU fans again.
While everyone was talking about Lyday's spectacular offensive performance, Cleveland noticed Lyday's defense, too.
"Not only did he make big baskets and big plays, he guarded their best player, Troy Rolle," Cleveland said. "I'm very proud of Terrell's effort on both ends of the floor."
Rolle finished with 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting, including 1-of-7 from behind the 3-point line.
"I thought he would look for his shot more, but he didn't," Lyday said of Rolle. "He played a real tough game. I just wanted to contain him."
Sporting an MWC-best 11-2 record, BYU travels today to Las Vegas, where the Cougars open league play against UNLV Monday night at 8:30 p.m. Because of school policy, BYU doesn't practice on Sundays, meaning the Cougars will have precious little time to prepare for the Rebels.