Make that three losses in a row for BYU.
The Cougars faded late against TCU Saturday in Forth Worth, falling 71-67 to continue their season-long road woes.
Here are three keys that led to BYU’s loss.
3 takeaways
BYU stumbled in the second half. After going into halftime with a 37-34 lead, the Cougars shot just 37.5% from the field with eight turnovers down the stretch.
With the game on the line in clutch time, BYU’s offense disappeared, failing to make a single field goal over the final 3:10 of play.
Turnovers killed the Cougars. BYU shot 48% from the field on the afternoon — compared to a 42% mark from TCU — and won the rebounding battle by a commanding 35-24 margin, but it was the difference in turnovers that resulted in a Horned Frogs win.
The Cougars coughed up 16 giveaways — one fewer than their season high — which led to 17 TCU points. The Horned Frogs, conversely, turned the ball over just six times.
If BYU can’t clean up the excessive turnovers soon, the Cougars won’t have much success, if any, in these close Big 12 contests.
Richie Saunders was excellent, but his teammates didn’t offer much help. Saunders scored 26 points, while BYU’s other four starters combined for just 20 and the Cougars’ bench provided 21.
Saunders shot 9 of 13 from the field (69%) and 5 of 7 (71%) from 3-point range, while the rest of the team shot 13 of 33 (39%) and 4 of 17 (24%).
Saunders is enjoying a breakout campaign and will likely receive some sort of All-Big 12 honor, but he can’t carry the Cougars alone. Plenty of players need to step up, but BYU’s highly-touted freshmen Egor Demin (eight points, four assists, four turnovers) and Kanon Catchings (three points in nine minutes) especially need to improve their consistency and produce more on the offensive side of the ball.