Before the last seven minutes of Tuesday’s 85-74 Big 12 basketball loss to No. 20 Arizona, BYU’s offense was purring along nicely.
The Cougars were getting defensive stops, which led to some transition buckets, and point guards Egor Demin and Dallin Hall were getting to the hoop and/or distributing the ball to shooters on the wings. Hall’s driving layup with 7:46 remaining cut Arizona’s lead to 67-66, and the Marriott Center crowd of 17,274 was sensing one of those signature wins that could have defined coach Kevin Young’s first season in Provo.
Then the wheels fell off — at both ends of the floor.
“We lost because we just couldn’t get stops,” Young said.
Before that, BYU was getting some great play from its point guards, starter Egor Demin and backup Dallin Hall, who combined to score 27 points and register nine assists. Hall added four rebounds to his 11-point, six-assist performance, in 25 minutes.
“Dallin Hall actually put the team on his back for awhile there,” Young said on his coaches show Thursday night. “We need that. We need him to be aggressive. That’s something I have talked to him a lot about.”
Finding more freedom to get to the basket than he has all season, Demin got up 20 shots, making seven, and finished with 16 points.
“We like him being aggressive,” Young said after the game. “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.”
Demin, who has played with more confidence the past five games in which BYU went 4-1, said the message from the coaching staff was the same after what can be termed a lost opportunity against the red-hot Wildcats.
“Just keep stacking days and come back to the gym with the mentality of a winner, no matter what happened the previous game. So I mean, it was a good experience,” Demin said. “We just gotta make sure we are living in accord with the idea that everybody tried their best and that we put everything on the table for the win. It is basketball. Things happen. We are going to get back to the gym and work hard for the next game.”
That next game comes Saturday at Cincinnati, and it suddenly looks like a really hard test for the Cougars (15-7, 6-5). The Bearcats (13-9, 3-8) snapped a four-game losing streak with an impressive 93-83 win at UCF on Wednesday and will be out to avenge that 80-52 loss at BYU in the Marriott Center on Jan. 25.
The 4 p.m. MST rematch at 12,012-seat Fifth Third Arena, to be televised by ESPN2, is sold out, the Bearcats announced on social media on Friday.
BYU will stay in the Eastern Time Zone and face West Virginia on Tuesday in Morgantown.
Young said it is a “huge” road swing for the Cougars, who are looking for their first three-game road winning streak since February 2021 when they were in the West Coast Conference and beat Portland, Pacific and Loyola Marymount in succession.
“The Cincinnati game is the biggest game of the year, to date. We got a chance to go get another road win,” Young said. “… Our approach is, ‘What is the next thing right in front of us?’ Whether it is practice or a one-game-at-a-time mentality, we have to stay locked in.
“We have a mature group. They understand how we approach things. We had a great day of work today at practice,” Young continued. “We will follow it up with another one (Friday) and be ready to go.”
Before the Bearcats traveled to Orlando, coach Wes Miller took his team to a practice gym and had the players and coaches play dodgeball in an attempt to bring joy and a competitive spirit back to the group.
It worked.
Guard Day Day Thomas scored a season-high 20 points — 18 in the first half — and Cincy shot 58.5% from the field, its best shooting percentage in a Big 12 game this year. Aziz Bandaogo, the transfer from Utah Valley, added 16 points, while Jizzle James and Dillon Mitchell also scored in double figures.
“They made some lineup changes, going with some smaller, more dynamic guards, trying to push the tempo a little bit more,” Young said of Cincinnati’s performance in Orlando. “UCF plays at a fast pace, so I think that had something to do with it, too. Yeah, we played well against them (on Jan. 25). They will be ready to go when we go out there, for sure.”
