So much for playing well at home.
So much for Marriott Center Magic.
Throughout West Coast Conference play, BYU had played well in Provo this season. In January, the Cougars nearly knocked off Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s before suffering one-point losses to those nationally ranked teams here.
Two weeks ago, BYU crushed then-third-place Loyola Marymount by 28 points here.
Then came Thursday night — when the Cougars looked listless and uninspired in the first half and fell behind by 17 at halftime.
It was so bad some boos could be heard as the first half ended.
BYU showed some heart in the second half, but third-place Santa Clara prevailed.
The Broncos halted an 11-game losing streak in Provo with a 81-74 victory in the Cougars’ penultimate home game of the season.
Coach Mark Pope aptly called it a “debacle.”
“Super disappointing outcome, super disappointing first half,” he said. “I was proud of the guys for having some fight in the second half. We just got to get better in 100 different ways.”
While BYU (16-13, 6-8) suffered its third straight loss, the third-place Broncos (20-8, 8-5) earned their 20th win of the season.
Santa Clara star Brandin Podziemski recorded a double-double with a game-high 26 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Keshawn Justice added 19 points.
The Broncos knocked down 7 of 13 3-pointers while the Cougars went 5 of 23 from 3-point range.
Santa Clara also outrebounded BYU 44-38.
“We were a train-wreck in transition defense. It was really disappointing. It’s been a huge point of emphasis for us the last couple of weeks,” Pope said. “Clearly, I’m doing a very, very poor job translating that into games, especially tonight. They scored 26 points in transition last time we played them. We protected the ball much better tonight but we just were not communicative in the first half. We had no urgency in transition defense in the first half.”
BYU led once, just briefly, at 8-6. The Cougars fell behind by double digits midway through the first half and they found themselves down 47-30 at intermission.
The Broncos scored the final nine points of the half.
Podziemski scored 14 in the first 20 minutes of play. Santa Clara shot 54% compared to the Cougars’ 39% in the first half.
“I don’t know if it’s a new low. I just think it’s my job to have our team ready to play. It’s probably a low for me in terms of my performance as a coach. There’s been a lot of weight on these guys this season. It’s been heavy for these guys.” — BYU coach Mark Pope
Pope was asked if this was a new low this season for this team.
“I don’t know if it’s a new low. I just think it’s my job to have our team ready to play. It’s probably a low for me in terms of my performance as a coach. There’s been a lot of weight on these guys this season. It’s been heavy for these guys,” he said. “We as a group have not been fully prepared to manage everything that’s happened to us this season. That doesn’t come as a surprise. We knew that coming in. We knew this was going to be a complicated year for us.
“Are we taking all these hard lessons and are we going to put them in the bank and make us better? That remains to be seen. It remains to be seen on Saturday and next Saturday and in the WCC tournament and next year and the year after. That’s the complication with approaching the game like this. You don’t get ready-made answers every single day.”
Rudi Williams led BYU with 20 points on 7 of 13 shooting while Fousseyni Traore recorded a double-double with 13 points, on 6 of 8 shooting, and 10 rebounds. Spencer Johnson added 11 points and Gideon George contributed 10.
But it was seldom-used Trey Stewart who impressed for the Cougars. He came off the bench to score a career-high nine points to go along with two rebounds, an assist and two steals in almost 10 minutes of action.
In BYU’s 83-76 loss to Santa Clara at the Leavey Center last month, Stewart played five meaningful minutes against the Broncos, scoring a layup, making a steal, recording an assist and grabbing a pair of rebounds.
“I’m super proud of Trey. I talk about guys that pay their dues and suffer in practice every day and don’t get opportunities and don’t get love. He’s on that path right now. He’s on the path to becoming a really special player,” Pope said. “He has been changed because he didn’t get any opportunities last year and had up-and-down opportunities this year. He is actually handling this right. He’s letting it grow him into a really special competitor and he has a terrific future. He still has got a bunch of mountains he’s gotta climb.”
Pope said Stewart’s situation is emblematic of what his team needs to do moving forward.
“I was really proud of him in the sense of in a really disorienting night — especially sitting on the bench the whole first half — it’s exactly the example. Very few people can sit there and watch the debacle that it was and feel all the weird feelings that are happening in that circumstance and then come off the bench and from the get-go make really positive plays and have really positive energy,” the coach added.
“There are very few people that can do that … You know how you learn how to do that? You suffer like Trey has the last two years. That’s the process this team is going through. This is all going to pay huge dividends but it’s super painful. Trey could not have performed better tonight. He was under control, he was super aggressive. He gave us a defensive spark. He was really helpful for us.”
The Cougars cut the deficit down to seven points with 1:40 remaining when Williams stole an inbounds pass, rushed to the basket and was fouled. He made both free throws to make it 74-67 for the Broncos.
But BYU couldn’t get any closer.
The Cougars visit No. 17 Saint Mary’s Saturday.
TIP-INS: Announced attendance was 13,321 … BYU made just 13 of 21 free-throw attempts. Santa Clara was 18 of 27 from the free-throw line … The Broncos outscored the Cougars in the paint 40-38, 13-11 in fast-break points and 17-16 in points off turnovers.