In a basketball season filled with as many ups and downs as an amusement park, the BYU Cougars managed to reach the top of the Ferris wheel in a dramatic 73-70 win over the highly ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs Saturday night in Spokane, Washington.

The Zags were a 12-point favorite over the visiting Cougars, and the game was played in a venue where BYU had never won. Even though the Cougars had a lot of motivation going into the game, Gonzaga had its own significant goal: maintain its standing as a potential No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

Even though the Zags have shown some stretches of vulnerability through the season, their nation-leading home-court winning streak seemed secure going into the game. Gonzaga was loaded with talent and size in the frontcourt, a place where the Cougars had strived for consistency and scoring in an injury-plagued year.

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The Cougars were riding a season-high five-game winning streak and had received some unexpected late-season productivity from Josh Sharp, Skyler Halford, Ryan Andrus and Frank Bartley IV. Still, the mountain to climb was formidable, and history was not on the side of the boys from Provo.

The Cougars had been going against the grain all season. In a year in where college basketball scoring was down, BYU has been No. 1 in the nation in scoring average for much of the year. With the loss of big man Nate Austin early in the year, the coaches have had to rely on the backcourt for much of the scoring load.

The four-guard lineup used by the Cougars for much of the year had resulted in some favorable matchup situations on the offensive side of the ball but left major mismatch issues on the defensive side.

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So, how did the seemingly impossible actually happen? Highly respected Gonzaga coach Mark Few said it best in his after-game comments. It was the energy and the intensity of the BYU team, which just plain outplayed the bigger and more highly rated team, he said.

Is this the same team that lost to Pepperdine twice and to San Diego? It appears that it is not. The adjustments and chemistry of the team have seemingly come together at the right time in the season. Corbin Kaufusi has become the formidable big man fans had hoped he would be, and Kyle Collinsworth has become even more dominant and has taken the pressure off scoring leader Tyler Haws.

What does this portend for the postseason? I would like to think that the up-and-down season is going to have more ups than downs as we get into playoff time. The Cougars have a chance to transform the disappointments from the early conference season into some major highs in the postseason. In the meantime, it has been a wild ride.

Ken Driggs of Mesa, Arizona, is a BYU graduate and served as Cosmo in the '60s. Contact him at kkdriggs@gmail.com.

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