HOUSTON — The No. 14-ranked Houston Cougars have lost only six games at home since the 7,000-seat Fertitta Center opened in 2018, racking up 101 victories over that stretch, so it is no wonder that unranked BYU couldn’t pull off an upset Saturday afternoon in its Big 12 road opener.
What was a surprise is that first-year coach Kevin Young’s team was not competitive in the least bit, losing 86-55 in front of 7,035 fans who probably went away trying to figure out how the blue-wearing Cougars managed to compile a 10-2 record heading into the lopsided contest.
It was a horrible performance for the visitors, worse than the last time they headed out on the road for a true road game, that 83-64 loss at Providence.
Houston is obviously better than the Friars, but that game was close for parts of both halves. This one wasn’t.
“We fell into the trap, literally and figuratively,” Young said.
He was talking about Houston’s pressure-filled, sticky defense, but he could have been addressing the way the Cougars looked totally unprepared for the hostile environment, or Houston’s incredibly effective defense.
In what was supposed to be a good indicator of Young’s first team in Provo, BYU bottomed out.
Every stat favored Houston, most notably a 37-24 rebounding advantage and BYU’s 15 turnovers (it seemed like a lot more than that) that UH turned into 24 points.
BYU entered as the No. 1 defensive rebounding team in the country, then proceeded to give up a whopping 15 offensive rebounds, which Houston turned into 18 second-chance points.
“I mean, that is probably their DNA. The problem there was we weren’t blocking out. It is that simple,” Young said. “So they were crashing guys from all over the place. We did a poor job of blocking out.”
Actually, the Cougars did a poor job of everything, with the exception of Trevin Knell’s 4 for 6 3-point shooting. He was the only BYU player in double figures, with 12 points.
Emanuel Sharp led Houston with 18, while Terrance Arceneaux had 15. Houston was 16 of 34 from 3-point range, and at one point was 9 of 13 from beyond the arc in the second half before a few late misses by its reserves.
A lot of those 3-pointers were wide open, with a BYU defender not within 5 feet of the marksman in red and white.
“Obviously we didn’t execute what we came in here wanting to do. Give them credit. A large part of that was because of how they played,” Young said.
“The narrative will be our sloppiness offensively, but I thought our defense was really bad, and it has been good for the last stretch of maybe the last month or so.”
Yes, this was the same BYU team that held Arizona State to 20.7% shooting from 3-point range in a 76-56 home win four days ago. Obviously Houston is much better than ASU, but the ease at which the Cougs got open shots was alarming for BYU.
“That (poor defense by BYU) made it more of a rock fight (for BYU’s offense) than it needed to be because we had a hard time getting out in transition,” Young said. “But again, they played well. Give them credit.”
That BYU had showed up for an expected Big 12 rock fight with marshmallows was evident almost from the onset, as the Cougars committed six turnovers in the first eight minutes.
Many of the giveaways “got the other guys going,” as former BYU coach and Houston Cougar Dave Rose used to say. BYU couldn’t turn them off.
Knell hit a couple of 3-pointers to seemingly right the Cougars before the under eight-minutes media timeout in the first half, only to have Houston score on four straight possessions to regain control.
The killer came with around five minutes left in the half when Ja’Vier Francis followed two UH misses, and two offensive rebounds, with a layup.
“Our coaches got us ready. I just feel like they played a great game. Like coach said, give credit where credit is due. They guarded the ball really, rebounded the ball really well,” Knell said. “They shot it really well. That’s a really well-coached team, and we just gotta have that (same) fight, so simple as that.”
Young said he was ready for everything but Houston’s shotmaking, even if the Coogs came in shooting 40% from 3-point range. They were 16 of 34 from deep on Saturday (47%) and 49.2% overall.
Before seeing BYU’s erratic defense, their season-high in 3-pointers was 14.
“That was something. I would be surprised if they hit more than 16 3s in a game for the rest of the year, so you gotta tip your hat,” Young said. “Again, a lot of it was more our mistakes. I thought we were not as connected defensively as we have been, so we could have taken some of those away.”
As for Houston’s defense, BYU can only hope it doesn’t see anything like that again. Houston does not play in Provo this year after beating BYU by seven last year at the Marriott Center in a nailbiter.
“In terms of their connection defensively, they are as connected of a defensive team as any in the country,” Young said. “I think the metrics bear that out, not just this year, but many years in a row.”
With 43 scouts representing 20 NBA teams on hand to presumably watch BYU’s highly touted freshmen, Russian Egor Demin and Catchings, Houston’s defense stole the show.
Catchings finished with six points on 2 of 5 shooting in 25 minutes, while Demin was a non-factor for the third-straight game outside of seven assists.
Demin went 1 of 6 from the floor, 0 of 3 from 3-point range and committed three turnovers. His bad pass into the third row when it was 4-4 and BYU was still a semblance of its former self set the tone.
BYU then got jittery and nervous, and even looked a bit intimidated. Gone was that confident, free-flowing offense that put up 76 points on Arizona State four days ago.
Houston’s defense “is hard to simulate,” Young said.
“That part of (the loss) was frustrating for me, because that was obviously one of the big points of emphasis for us coming into the game,” Young said. “That for me was very disappointing. We found a little bit of rhythm there in the first half but couldn’t sustain it.”
BYU had more turnovers — 10 — than made field goals — 8 — in the first half. That’s not good.
Only late, when the game was out of reach, did the blue-wearing Cougars get more field goals than turnovers. Houston had 1.4 points per possession, while BYU had just 0.87 and was held to a season-low point total.
“In a game like this, we will have to get into the film and see exactly what bright spots we can pull,” Young said, noting that playing posts Fousseyni Traore and Keba Keita at the same time proved fruitful.
“I just told the guys — you gotta learn from it and then have a short memory and get ready for Tuesday.”
BYU (10-3, 1-1) hosts Texas Tech next Tuesday at the Marriott Center.