BYU’s excruciating 85-74 loss to No. 20 Arizona at the Marriott Center on Tuesday night was disappointing on many levels for the Cougars.
Their four-game winning streak was snapped.
Their NET ranking dropped to 34, and their Kenpom.com rating dropped to 33.
Their opportunity to pick up a Quad 1 win and earn a bit more respect in the Big 12, with a huge crowd of 17,274 fans and a national television audience (ESPN) looking on, fell to the wayside.
It was one of those losses, which included a late-game collapse, that can seriously damage a team’s confidence, although kudos must be given to the Wildcats. They are good, well-coached, and getting better as the calendar turns to February.
However, first-year BYU coach Kevin Young remains resolute. He took the opportunity in his postgame news conference, when asked about the lessons that were learned from the loss, to reiterate that nobody has thrown in the towel, as it were.
“We have to learn that we are as good as any team in the country, and I firmly believe that. I think we can play with any team in the country, honestly.”
— BYU coach Kevin Young
“We have to learn that we are as good as any team in the country, and I firmly believe that. I think we can play with any team in the country, honestly,” Young said. “I think the internal belief has to continue to grow, which I think it has over the course of this last five games. That is what you do. You answer the call. We have guys in our locker room that are capable of doing that, and we will continue to push them to do that.”
Arizona (16-6, 10-1), which is tied with Houston (18-4, 10-1) atop the Big 12 standings exposed some of the Cougars’ weaknesses, most notably their lack of size inside. The Wildcats won the rebounding battle by 15, blocked three shots, and scored 42 points in the paint.
The visitors showed why they are ranked No. 20 in the nation. Young said BYU (15-7, 6-5) also has that potential.
“I think we are a top-25 team,” he told BYUtv. “But we have work to do to prove it.”
An obvious area where work is needed is at the free-throw line; BYU missed six freebies, and is now shooting 68.5% from the charity stripe (267 of 390). That ranks the Cougars 286th in the country in free-throw shooting percentage. That’s not good.
“Some guys gotta step up and make gimmes,” Young said, referring to freshman Egor Demin’s 0-of-3 night.
For what it’s worth, Demin was working on his free-throw shooting on the Marriott Center floor long after Tuesday’s game had concluded.
With Arizona sticking to BYU’s outside shooters all night, Demin and fellow point guard Dallin Hall found more freedom to drive to the hole, which they did until six minutes remained and the Cougars’ offense dried up. Demin finished with 16 points, but on 7-of-20 shooting, and his final 3 came at the buzzer and was meaningless.
“We like him being aggressive. I thought he did a good job of getting downhill and getting to the rim. That is where he is at his best. Then you gotta stop him, and then his own spray-outs (passes) can happen,” Young said.
Hall had his best game in a month, scoring 11 points and dishing out six assists in 25 minutes.
“I thought (Hall’s aggressiveness) was incredible. That’s the Dallin we want. He has been a little reserved, for lack of a better term, in parts of the season,” Young said. “I loved seeing that from him. If we can bottle that up and continue to pull that out, that will pay huge dividends for us.”
For his part, Hall said his coaches and teammates “have been on me a lot” to be more assertive.
“They were so concerned with our shooters tonight, which you could tell from the game and the stats, that it left a lot of open lanes for me and Egor to get downhill, too,” Hall said. “I am working on that mindset more and more, and growing in that space. But I felt like I made some improvement there.”
Hall said the players are buying into Young’s confidence in them.
“I think we left a lot of money on the table, which was frustrating. We obviously didn’t shoot it well,” Hall said. “… We just have so much shooting, so much talent and IQ on the floor, it is really our intensity and attention to scouting and the game plan, and what we want to do offensively (that will make them better). … We have to grow in our toughness as well. This was a battle. They are a super physical team, well-coached. Those are areas we have to improve in if we want to beat any team in the country.”
Now the Cougars head back out on the road, facing Cincinnati on Saturday and West Virginia next Tuesday.
“Games are won on the margins. I say it all the time. The marginal difference in that game was our inability to get stops,” Young said. “… The other thing, I think, in terms of learning is we are a resilient club. We took three (losses) in a row on the chin and nobody batted an eye. We go back to work. So that for me is exactly where we are now.”
