PROVO — Facing a well-rested Portland team coming off a confidence-boosting upset win the last time it played, and having lost an overtime heartbreaker at rival Saint Mary’s two nights prior, the BYU Cougars couldn’t have been blamed for coming out flat Saturday night as 18-point favorites.
Naturally, the opposite happened.
The Cougars started the game as well as they have all season, even with leading rebounder and scorer Yoeli Childs missing his second-straight game with an open dislocation of the index finger on his right hand. The Cougars (13-5, 2-1) made their first six shots, including two 3-pointers and a 3-point play by Dalton Nixon, to take a 15-0 lead.
“It was a great start, and it started on the defensive end,” Nixon said. “We wanted to set the tone early with our defense.”
“Pretty spectacular. This young man, he is a really special player.” — BYU coach Mark Pope, on TJ Haws’ big night
Portland (9-9, 1-2) didn’t fold as so many other Pilots have in previous visits and made things mildly interesting in the second half before BYU prevailed 96-70 in front of 13,048 at the Marriott Center.
The game’s star was Zac Seljaas, who scored 21 points — four short of his career high — off the bench, while the catalyst was TJ Haws once again.
“Pretty spectacular,” BYU coach Mark Pope said of Haws’ big night. “This young man, he is a really special player.”
Haws dished out 14 assists, breaking his career high by four dimes, and added 13 points. But more impressively, he didn’t commit a single turnover while playing just more than 35 minutes. Jake Toolson also played 35 minutes turnover-free, while chipping in eight assists and 12 points.
Pope said the Cougars had 53 “assist opportunities,” which is evidently a stat the Cougars keep — and a season-high.
Haws has had five or more assists in seven of his last eight games, the two-assist night in the loss at SMC the only outlier. But he did have 29 points against the Gaels.
“TJ is a really, really advanced player,” Pope said. “So my evaluation of TJ gets critical because of his high-level approach to the game.”
Saturday, Haws got some help — especially early.
The senior got it started with a pull-up jumper and a triple before Toolson hit a 3-pointer. Nixon’s dunk made it 10-0, then Kolby Lee — getting the start in the place of Childs — became the fourth Cougar to score less than three minutes in with a soft jumper. Nixon capped the run with a 3-point play before finishing the first half with 10 points and eight rebounds and the game with 14 points and 11 boards.
Defensively, the Cougars were also dialed in early, as Portland missed its first eight shots — Haws blocked a shot by 6-foot-9 Tahirou Diabate to prolong the drought — and committed three turnovers before finally scoring with 15:52 remaining in the half. Theo Akwuba’s inside basket finally got the Pilots on the board.
The Cougars weren’t finished. Toolson canned another 3-pointer, then Seljaas drilled back-to-back treys to put BYU ahead 24-2. Seljaas was 5 of 5 from 3-point range.
“That start is indicative of how we are trying to create the best locker room in America,” Pope said.
Sharing the ball was the difference. Six Cougars reached double figures.
“That’s just how this team fights,” Nixon said.
Portland went on a 13-2 run in the middle of the first half to get back in it, then watched BYU score the last seven points on the half to take a 51-30 lead at the break.
In the second half, it was Portland starting hot, as the visitors made seven of their first nine shots and trimmed BYU’s lead to 65-57 with just under 11 minutes left before a 11-0 run righted the Cougars and turned into a 26-8 run that sent Portland home still winless (0-12) in Provo.
“It’s hard to be 100% perfect all 40 minutes,” Seljaas said.
It was Nixon’s first career double-double, and after the game he had a conversation with one of the most prolific double-double machines in BYU basketball history.
“It feels good,” Nixon said. “I was talking to Yo at the end, and I said, ‘man, this really does feel nice.’”
Pope said he doesn’t know when Childs will return, but said “infection is a huge concern” because the fractured bone broke through skin. Pope said Connor Harding, who hit a pair of 3-pointers in 20 minutes, has a bone bruise on his knee but said before the game he was feeling better the past few days after dealing with it for three weeks.