Coach Kevin Young’s BYU basketball team got one of the monkeys off its back Tuesday night, and we’re not talking about recording a basketball victory in Boulder, Colorado, for the first time since 1902.
“Nothing is coming easy. We just gotta keep going. It has just been the moral of the story. … We gotta keep finding solutions.”
— BYU guard Richie Saunders after victory over CU
In its first game at Colorado since 2015, BYU rolled past the Buffaloes 83-67 to get its first true road win of the 2024-25 season.
“It was big,” Young acknowledged. “… I get that there are obviously differences playing on the road. What you have to do is focus even harder. We focused on the game plan very well tonight, and that is something that we can certainly bottle up and take with us when we get back out on the road after the (next two games, which are in Provo).”
With a 3-4 record in the Big 12, 12-6 overall, BYU can get above .500 if it can hold serve in the Marriott Center beginning Saturday (8:30 p.m. MST, ESPN2) against Cincinnati (12-6, 2-5), which lost 81-71 at home to Texas Tech on Tuesday.
Three days after that late-night special, the Cougars will host Baylor (11-6, 3-3) before heading off to Orlando for a fourth game in two seasons against UCF.
“Nothing is coming easy. We just gotta keep going,” said BYU star Richie Saunders after scoring 25 points on 10-of-15 shooting against the Buffaloes. “It has just been the moral of the story. … We gotta keep finding solutions.”
That’s what the Cougars did in Boulder, climbing a substantial mountain after the home team took a 32-22 lead and seemed to have the visitors — albeit backed by a sizable contingent of BYU fans at CU Events Center — in trouble as Young searched for answers from his bench.
He got some in the form of 6-foot-10 junior Mihailo Boskovic, the tallest player on the team. With starting center Keba Keita in a speck of foul trouble, Boskovic came in and gave the Cougars five big minutes at the end of the half, posting a plus-10 when he was on the floor.
“Every game has a life of its own. This game, we were in foul trouble,” Young noted. “I was trying to find a group. I eventually found a group that was good. And I think that sparked us.
“I think Mihailo coming in at the (post) opened the game up on both ends, really. His size, defensively (helped), and I thought his slip rolls against their switching helped us open the game up.”
Regardless of what happens from here on out, the Cougars will always have those last five minutes of the first half, and most of the second half, against Colorado, when they looked like everyone thought they would when the season began.
Of course, the competition ratchets up a notch, with few remaining gimmes on the schedule.
“We are (still) trying to figure it out, and find this chemistry with each other, yeah, we just enjoy the game,” said freshman guard Egor Demin, who may have turned a bit of a corner himself with a big second half. Demin had all seven of his assists in the second half, feeding Mawot Mag, Saunders and Trevin Knell for buckets as the Cougars pulled away.
“Yes, is the ultimate answer,” Young said when asked if that is what he envisioned for BYU’s offense when he began installing it last summer. “Part of it is we are all learning along the way, led by me (learning on the fly). I say it all the time: the game is so different than what I am coming from for most of my career, so I have had to adjust.”
Young said one of the biggest keys was Demin making two layups in the first five minutes. The freshman is still looking for his long-range shooting stroke, going 0 for 2 from deep, but he was 4 of 5 from inside the arc.
“We have been on him about attacking the rim more,” Young said. “… He is really one of the most efficient scorers in the country when he attacks the rim. And we talked about that coming into the game. His first two buckets were layups and that kind of got his aggression going.”
The Cougars shot 68% in the second half, and 58.5% in the game, which is a season-high.
“We just haven’t shot the ball at a clip that I know we are capable of yet,” Young said. “When we do, we can put up 45 points in a half like we did tonight.”
The Cougars were also 3-4 in their first seven Big 12 games last year before picking up a big road win at West Virginia that built their confidence for the home stretch. But as CougarStats.com noted, BYU has played the second-easiest conference schedule to date. In the remaining 13 games, it has the fourth-hardest schedule.
Knocking off Cincinnati won’t be easy. Remember, the Bearcats dealt BYU a 71-60 loss in their Big 12 opener last year at the Marriott Center. Cincinnati also beat Colorado in Boulder, taking a 68-62 decision on Jan. 15.
