LAS VEGAS — Senior Eric Nielsen bested his career high with nearly 20 minutes to play Saturday night in the Las Vegas Showdown against 13th-ranked Stanford, the three-time defending Pac-10 champion.

Nielsen obviously ripped his old personal best, scoring 29 in leading the Cougars to a gigantic 61-76 late-night upset on ESPN-TV, beating his old mark of 19 against Arizona State. Nielsen outscored Stanford All-American Casey Jacobsen, who totaled 28 but struggled with a number of shots.

The Cougars led by nine with two minutes left, but Stanford roared back to get within three a couple of times, but four Matt Montague free throws kept the Cougars ahead.

BYU equaled its best season start in three years at 7-2 and broke a two-game road losing streak with the shocker played at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV, which fell to Texas in the first game of the doubleheader.

When Stanford center Curtis Borchardt picked up his fourth foul and put the Cougars into the free-throw bonus with 10:27 left for a 61-58 lead, and then they weathered a five-point burst from Stanford and scored 13 of the next 15, there was surely an upset in the cards.

The Cougars held a 74-65 advantage, Jacobsen had just cast up an extremely wayward trey that fell out of bounds, and Julius Barnes had done almost the same thing. Jacobsen then missed a layin and another three. The Card seemed to be falling apart, getting wilder and wilder while the Cougars' Jared Jensen scored six straight points.

Then Stanford began showing that championship form, steadily gaining until the Cougars led by just 77-73 with 16.6 left.

Mark Begelow added 15 points for BYU.

For the first time this season, the Cougars were behind at halftime.

Not by much, and not for long.

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They scored the first three of the second half, Nielsen fouled on a fallaway and Jared Jensen putting in two free throws for the Y.'s first four-point lead, 45-41. Nielsen's three-point play gave him a career-high 20 with 19 minutes and 50 seconds left to play.

The Cougars were ahead almost as much as they were behind in the first half and three times held three-point leads, scoring outside (5-for-8 on threes, 63 percent) and getting nine points at the free-throw line despite four misses. The Cardinal's points were in the lane (24) and off turnovers (10).

Two Nielsen free throws with :00.9 left in the first half left the score 41-40 for Stanford, and the Cougs had been up 38-37, but Jacobsen's fast-break layin from Justin Davis after a BYU miss put the Cardinal ahead by one, and when Bigelow lost the ball under his own basket, Stanford's Julius Barnes raced for a fast-break dunk with six seconds left for a three-point lead that Bigelow bit into.


E-MAIL: lham@desnews.com

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