For the second straight year, the BYU women’s basketball team’s stay at the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City was short and uninspiring.
The No. 12-seeded Cougars gave up 35 points to UCF’s Katelin Peterson and were outscored by 11 points in the fourth quarter at T-Mobile Center, losing 81-69 to the Knights in a first-round game.
BYU finishes coach Amber Whiting’s third season at the helm with a 13-17 record, but at least the Cougars can say they were more competitive in postseason play than last year, when they were a No. 10 seed and got blasted 77-53 by Kansas to finish with a 16-17 overall mark.
They also went 16-17 in 2022-23, meaning that this is the program’s third-straight losing season. Whiting’s career record dropped to 45-51.
Hopes were high after the Cougars pushed sixth-seeded Utah to the brink last Saturday in Salt Lake City, losing by a half-court buzzer-beater in overtime, but BYU just couldn’t contain Peterson in Kansas City.
The 5-foot-9 guard, a transfer from Indiana, was 12 for 21 from the field and 9 of 12 from the free-throw line for UCF, which moves on to face No. 5 seed Kansas State in a second-round game Thursday.
“It feels great (to get UCF’s first Big 12 tournament win),” Peterson said. “Last year we lost the first game, so being able to win this one feels really amazing.”
BYU’s Delaney Gibb had 15 points, three assists, three turnovers and a steal in 34 minutes a day after earning Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors. She was 5 of 17 from the field.
“A couple keys to the game were transition points and offensive rebounds,” Whiting said. “We needed to make sure we took care of that, and we did not.”
Gibb finished the season averaging 17.48 points per game, the most by any freshman in BYU history.
Amari Whiting added 14 points, Kemery Congdon had 11 and senior Kendra Gillespie chipped in a career-high 10 for the Cougars, who had a 54-53 lead with 1:47 remaining in the third quarter before shots stopped falling in the fourth.
The Knights led 58-57 heading into the fourth quarter, then used a Peterson-fueled 8-0 run to take over the contest.
“They got some easy ones in transition, got a couple easy ones off offensive rebounds, and then we let Kaitlin get away from us,” Amber Whiting said. “We needed to lock her down.”
UCF turned 18 BYU turnovers into 27 points and dominated the paint, outscoring BYU 42-22 from close range.
BYU defeated UCF 73-66 in Provo on Feb. 5 in the only meeting between the teams this season before Wednesday.
The game featured 20 lead changes and seven ties.
BYU led 22-20 at the end of the first quarter, and had only two turnovers to that point. But the Cougars had eight giveaways in the second quarter, and UCF went on a 9-1 run in the final 4:16 of the quarter to take a 33-29 lead at the break.
BYU was outrebounded 40-30 and gave up 15 fast-break points.
UCF was 8 of 11 from free-throw line in the first half, while BYU was 1 of 2. The Cougars were called for eight fouls in the first half, UCF just four.
That was a season-long problem for BYU, which just couldn’t keep opponents off the free-throw line, for whatever reason.
Summing up the season, BYU’s coach said the Cougars were competitive in most of their games, but had trouble taking care of the ball and closing teams out.
“We lost a heartbreaker at Utah just a couple of days ago, really,” she said. “We have lost eight games this season by 10 points or less, and we have been right there in a bunch of them. I see the good that we have.
“I see we need to clean up little things in the end,” she continued. “Turnovers and offensive rebounds have plagued us all season, and so that needs to be better.”
