LAHAINA, Hawaii — After a 71-56 setback at the hands of No. 4 Kansas in the Maui Invitational semifinals Tuesday, BYU will face another tough challenge Wednesday.
The Cougars (4-3) take on Virginia Tech (6-1), which suffered its first loss of the season when it fell to Dayton 89-62 on Tuesday.
But the Hokies were the talk of the tournament Monday, when they stunned No. 3 Michigan State, 71-66.

What did that victory mean for Virginia Tech? The Hokies had a 27% chance to make the NCAA Tournament going into that game. After beating the Spartans, that number jumped to 64%.
Kansas and Dayton meet for the Maui Invitational championship at the Lahaina Civic Center before BYU and Virginia Tech square off in the third-place game Wednesday (9:30 p.m., MST, ESPN2).
Virginia Tech coach Mike Young was not happy about his team’s performance against Dayton. “They took us behind the shed and whipped our hind end,” he said.
Guard Landers Nolley II led the Hokies with 15 points. He averages a team-high 19.7 points per game.
The Cougars defeated UCLA 78-63 Monday night in the first round. But BYU wasn’t able to play an uptempo style against Kansas like it was able to against the Bruins.
“Well, I think, first, it’s Kansas, right? So first it’s Kansas. Second, it’s my fault my rotation was just too tight. Right now, we’re somewhat limited in our depth,” said coach Mark Pope. “So I think I played eight guys (Monday night) and these guys are carrying a big burden and I’m asking them to do a lot, so that’s probably part of it.”
Guard Jake Toolson scored a game-high 20 points against UCLA on 8 of 14 shooting. Against Kansas, Toolson was 3 of 9 from the field.
“I did a poor job of finding places for our guys to get downhill (against Kansas),” Pope said. “That’s what we do — we break down the defense, try to get into a drive-and-kick game and that’s where we operate. That’s where we feel like we have some juice.
“We just had such a hard time getting to the front line. That’s something that, as Jake continues to progress as an extraordinary basketball player, we have to help him to be able to do, where he actually feels comfortable committing to that gap and making plays there.”
As a team, BYU made 9 of 18 3-pointers against UCLA and 9 of 33 against Kansas.
The Cougars struggled to take care of the ball against the Jayhawks, giving away 20 turnovers.
“I think the frustration for us mounted and we probably didn’t handle that as well as we would like to in the second half, and so the credit Kansas for that, they’re good,” Pope said. “They’re good. They can guard. I think they are No. 9 in the country defensively on KenPom’s numbers and they’ve actually played a pretty challenging schedule, so they’re probably actually better than that.”
Wednesday marks the final day of the Maui Invitational. The Cougars will return home to host Montana Tech Saturday at 1 p.m. MST.