MANHATTAN, Kansas — The No. 10 BYU Cougars won for the first time ever at Bramlage Coliseum on Saturday afternoon, overcoming turnover problems to take an 83-73 win over Kansas State in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
AJ Dybantsa, Rob Wright and Richie Saunders combined for 55 points and Keba Keita grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to go with 11 points as BYU improved to 13-1 on the season.
The Cougars took a 45-35 halftime lead despite committing 12 turnovers in the first 20 minutes and finished with 19 giveaways.
Here are 3 takeaways.
AJ Dybantsa shined on national TV
Dybantsa was cooking in the first half and seemingly headed toward a monster game — until he got into foul trouble.
He still finished with 24 points on 8 of 15 shooting, but it wasn’t the best game of the season for the possible No. 1 pick in the NBA draft in front of a national television audience (CBS).
Dybantsa committed seven turnovers to go with seven rebounds and three assists, but he picked up his second foul with 6:27 remaining in the first half and spent most of the rest of the half on the bench.
Mihailo Boskovic and Kennard Davis picked up the slack with Dybantsa sitting, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Cougars a 10-point lead at the break.
BYU got off to a fast start, and it was needed
It appeared that the Cougars were going to get off to one of their troubling slow starts, but an early timeout reversed their course.
Trailing 12-7 after back to back 3-pointers by Abdi Bashir of the Wildcats, the Cougars went on an 11-2 run midway through the first half to take control and would not lose the lead again.
They held the home team to no field goals in a seven-minute stretch in the first half and were solid defensively throughout as K-State shot 42% from the field and was just 3 of 21 from 3-point range.
BYU dominated the glass to get the Big 12 win
BYU overcame the 19 turnovers with a fantastic performance on the glass, as Keita and Cougars won the battle of the boards, 47-35.
In addition to Keita’s career performance on the boards and Dybantsa’s contributions, Davis added six rebounds and three assists and point guard Robert Wright III added four rebounds to go along with his 18 points and five assists.