Analysis: BYU finally pulls out a close game, but that wasn’t Tuesday’s biggest surprise

Two things happened at the Marriott Center on Tuesday night that might come as a surprise to a lot of people.

Famed mixed martial arts fighter and notorious bad boy Conor McGregor took in the entire Big 12 basketball game between two of the most religious schools in the country, BYU and Baylor, and actually led the ROC — BYU’s student section — in cheers at halftime.

No, not those kind of cheers. Real, B-Y-U chants, and stuff like that.

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Second, the Cougars actually won a close game after coming up short by a hair in four of their six losses this season.

In a battle of some of the top freshmen in the country, BYU’s Kanon Catchings and Egor Demin combined to score 38 points to offset 28 by Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe and 22 by Robert Wright as the Cougars edged the Bears 93-89 in overtime in front of 17,297 delirious and starstruck fans in Provo.

BYU (14-6, 5-4) has now won three straight Big 12 games for the first time since joining the nation’s premier college basketball league a year ago, while Baylor (13-7, 5-4) can still feel good about the effort because Edgecombe continued to make a case to be a lottery pick in June and the Bears almost won without two injured starters, Langston Love and Jeremy Roach.

“Just happy to be on the winning side of a game like that. Been on the other side a couple of times. We stacked up good days in practice and a lot of guys stepped up against obviously a good team, well-coached team, with really good players,” said BYU coach Kevin Young, who never got to meet McGregor (Kalani Sitake got a hug at halftime) but was as starstruck as everybody else because his first head coaching job was in Dublin, Ireland — McGregor’s hometown.

Keeping the game close, and almost avenging last year’s 79-71 loss in Provo, “is hard to do,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. “Second game of a road trip. Altitude. Down two players.”

Indeed, the Bears showed they are going to be a force when they get back to full strength — maybe on Saturday when Kansas visits Waco.

“Today was two great teams fighting it out to the end. Give BYU credit for making a few more plays down the stretch. I know their crowd does a great job giving them a home-court advantage,” Drew said. “But I was proud of our guys’ effort and fight, giving ourselves a chance to have a chance down the stretch.”

BYU led by as many as 13 in the first half and 11 early in the second half but could never put the visitors away, thanks to the heroics of Edgecombe (9 of 15) and Wright (6 of 12, and 8 of 8 from the free-throw line).

Wright scored 18 of his points in the second half and overtime, and was practically unguardable down the stretch. His two free throws with 4.3 seconds remaining in regulation sent the contest into overtime tied at 78-78.

BYU’s Dallin Hall actually took a pass from Demin and made a long 3-pointer but was a second or two late, and five minutes were added to the clock.

The Cougars struck first in the extra session, as Keba Keita tipped the ball to Trevin Knell for a layup. After a Baylor turnover, Hall made a triple and BYU was off to the races, never to trail again.

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Dawson Baker’s free throws with six seconds remaining in OT sealed the win.

“That’s big. There are some games that we had earlier that just didn’t go our way that looked similar to this game. It was good for us to finally get over the hump and see this one end up in the win column,” Baker said.

“And so it is big for us, especially with some young guys to learn how to win in certain situations like that. They didn’t hand us this win. They made it as hard as possible, making big shots. We had to go take it, so it was a really good experience for us.”

It was especially good for Catchings, who didn’t miss a shot for what he believes is the first time in his basketball career. And it came with his famous aunt, Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings, and mother, Tauja, who played at Illinois and professionally overseas, in attendance.

Kanon Catchings was 8 of 8 from the floor, 4 of 4 from 3-point range and 3 of 3 from the free-throw line in putting together the breakout game BYU fans have been waiting for.

All in 24 minutes.

“I thought I was going to miss at least one,” Catchings said. “They just kept going in.”

Young didn’t play the freshman in the last minutes of regulation, or at all in overtime. Why?

“A lot of it was just the defensive matchups that we liked out there. You got three dynamic guards (on Baylor). That’s not necessarily his strong suit (guarding quickness),” Young said. “Experience in those moments is something that we opted for, and it worked.”

Asked if he was upset that he wasn’t out there, Catchings shook his head.

“I just wanted to win the game. Whatever coach thought would get us the win is what I wanted to do,” he said.

The Cougars threatened to run away and hide in the first half but could never quite pull away from the shorthanded Bears despite shooting 60% from the field (15 of 25).

Baylor shot just 45% early but stayed close by making six 3-pointers in the first half. The Bears also turned seven offensive rebounds into nine second-chance points in the first half, and finished with 14 offensive boards and 17 second-chance points against one of the best defensive rebounding teams in the country.

In front of 32 scouts representing 15 NBA teams, Demin didn’t match Edgecombe’s numbers, but he was solid nevertheless. The 18-year-old Russian was 5 of 10 for 15 points and made two free throws after being fouled attempting a 3-pointer with 1:09 left in regulation to give BYU a five-point lead.

He had six assists to offset four turnovers, the latter stat of which consisted of a couple of really costly ones that led to Baylor fast breaks.

But this night belonged to Catchings, who hadn’t scored in double figures since the Big 12 opener against Arizona State, which also happened to be the last time his mom and aunt were in the building.

“You don’t miss a shot, I guess you can call that a breakout game,” Young said. “Yeah, he was tremendous. Happy for him, because obviously he has had a couple of bumps in the road, and he has stayed the course.

“The entire coaching staff has done a good job staying in the trenches with him, keeping him positive. He’s done a good job of keeping his head down and working. Yeah, he was unbelievable tonight.”

Along with everything else that happened.