Hopefully we’ll dodge a bullet here. We’ll see. – BYU head coach Dave Rose
STOCKTON, Calif. — After going scoreless during the first half Saturday at Pacific, guard Nick Emery scored BYU’s first eight points of the second half in the Cougars’ eventual 62-47 victory.
It appeared Emery was on his way to 10 consecutive points when he made a steal, streaked toward the basket and tried to score a layup with 14:33 left in the game. A Tiger defender contested the shot, which missed, and Emery went down hard to the floor, suffering an injury to his left knee.
Emery did not return to the game and was limping. His knee will undergo more evaluation Sunday.
“We’ll have somebody look at it,” said coach Dave Rose. “Hopefully we’ll dodge a bullet here. We’ll see.”
Guard TJ Haws said “it was tough” seeing Emery go down.
“Nick’s one of our best players and he’s got a lot of heart,” Haws added. “I’m not too worried about him. I think he’s going to come back tough. He’s a tough sucker and he’s got a lot of heart.”
Emery’s aggressive play at the start of the second half was crucial as Pacific was cutting into BYU’s lead.
“At the start of the second half, he was determined,” Rose said of Emery. “He got a quick foul and then he got that second foul and we sat him for two or three minutes to end the first half. In that second half, we needed that.”
“Nick is capable of doing that,” Haws said. “He can hit 10 in a row if you leave him wide open like that. It was good for Nick to hit those shots and good for us to get rolling in the second half and get our confidence back.”
TECHNICAL FOUL: On the same play that Emery was injured, Haws was trailing and tried to tip in Emery’s miss but was called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim.
“I didn’t really mean to hang on the rim,” Haws said. “I thought it was going to come off the rim and I accidentally got the rim.”
That technical didn’t really hurt the Cougars as Haws drilled a 3-pointer soon thereafter and later BYU stretched its lead to 19.
NEVER FORGET: Eric Mika, who scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds Saturday, noted that the last time he played at the Spanos Center, three years ago, BYU lost. The Tigers won that night, 89-82.
“I didn’t win here my freshman year so it’s good to come back and play better and win it,” Mika said.