NEW YORK CITY — The comeback Cougars just pulled off their craziest stunt to date, and in the most famous arena in the world, no less.
Trailing by 22 points in the second half in Tuesday night’s Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden against Clemson, No. 10 BYU did what it seemingly does best, orchestrating a late surge to storm back and capture an improbable 67-64 victory over the Tigers, with Rob Wright III’s game-winning, buzzer-beating 3-pointer serving as the decisive blow.
With 1.5 seconds left to play and the score knotted at 64 points apiece, Wright caught the inbounds pass from teammate Mihailo Boskovic and threw up a leaping 3-pointer between two defenders, swishing perfectly in the net and igniting an explosion of emotion from the BYU faithful in attendance.
“I’ve never had a buzzer beater 3, so that was the first one,” Wright said. ”AJ (Dybantsa) wasn’t open, he was getting double-teamed. So I told him, ‘I’ll be coming back to the ball,’ and he just trusted me, passed it to me and then the shot went in. It’s a surreal feeling."
But Wright’s heroics were just the cherry on top of a stellar second-half showing for BYU, who had gone into halftime immediately after surrendering a 21-0 Clemson run to trail 43-22.
The Cougars completely flipped the switch in the latter frame, ending the night on a 45-21 run. They shot 53.3% from the field over the final 20 minutes while holding Clemson to a 25.9% shooting mark over that same stretch.
“I thought the look in their eyes got different,” BYU head coach Kevin Young told reporters after the game. “I thought we were just kind of blank and just a little lifeless in the first half, honestly, so I challenged the guys (at halftime) just to come out with more of a competitive spirit.
“... I mean, that’s a big, strong, physical team. I thought our guys responded. I thought just our kind of trench warfare mentality was much better in the second half.”
When Clemson led by 22 points, ESPN Analytics gave the Tigers a win probability of 98.5%.
Jimmy V himself — Jim Valvano, the late, great NC State coach known for his famous “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up” speech he gave just weeks before his passing in 1993 — would be proud of how the Cougars followed such counsel to defy the odds in his self-titled showcase game.
“Unfortunately, we’ve been in this situation too many times this year. Our second half has been ridiculously efficient and effective. Although I wish that wasn’t the case, I think having reference points as you go throughout the season are really important,” Young said.
“... I give Clemson tons of credit. They had a good game plan to put us in mud, honestly, in the first half. We just couldn’t find the home offensively ... In the first half, the ball wasn’t moving and forced our guys to take not good shots. I didn’t coach a good first half. In the second half, we found a much better rhythm and that had a lot to do with our offensive output. We scored 45 points in the second half. It was pretty impressive.”
The secret sauce to BYU’s refusal to surrender was AJ Dybantsa, the Cougars’ freshman phenom who shook off a slow start of his own to go nuclear in the second half in the first of what should be dozens of trips to the famed Garden over the course of his basketball career.
Dybantsa scored 22 points after halftime — over that same stretch, Clemson scored 21 — while adding seven rebounds and five assists. In the second half, Dybantsa scored or assisted on 34 of BYU’s 45 points, flexing his No. 1-overall NBA Draft selection case to the basketball world once again.
“One thing about AJ that he does a good job of, he really is a very fast processor,” Young said. “In the second half he made the needed adjustments where he could get to his spots a little bit more, and then the game kind of opened up from that standpoint.”
Added Dybantsa: “They decided not to double me in the second half, so I picked my spot smarter. Not trying to fade as much, just trying to raise above the defense.
“... (I tried to) just be patient. Don’t get too down on yourself if you’re missing shots in the first half. You’ve still got another 20 minutes to go. I’m super confident in my ability and I trust all the work I put in.”
The Cougars, now 8-1, will return to the Marriott Center Saturday for the first time in more than a month to face UC Riverside.