Saturday was set up to be one of the top highlights of BYU’s season.
Instead, the Cougars’ 90-86 overtime victory against Colorado will ultimately be remembered for its most gut-wrenching moment.
BYU was heavily favored against the visiting Buffaloes, its lowest-rated remaining opponent of the regular season. Additionally, Jimmer Fredette would have his No. 32 jersey retired at halftime, with the sold out Marriott Center crowd all donning replica Fredette jerseys of their own and creating an electric, deafening environment prior to tipoff.
But less than a minute into the contest, disaster struck.
BYU star Richie Saunders, attempting a jump pass as he soared out of bounds, planted his right foot awkwardly upon landing and took a hard fall, immediately clutching his right knee as he lay in pain.
Saunders remained on the ground for a while before being helped up, needing assistance for the beginning of his walk back to the locker room before eventually walking out under his own power.
Though he did give a double thumbs up to fans as he left the floor, Saunders never returned to the BYU bench, let alone the game, with his wife and parents being summoned back into the locker room to see him.
“I think it sucked the life out the gym, if I’m being honest,” BYU head coach Kevin Young said of Saunders’ injury, adding that he did not have an update regarding the senior star’s status moving forward.
“You never want to see an injury to any player, but definitely not to someone who’s the heart and soul of our team and bleeds BYU blue.”
Losing Saunders so early in the game clearly affected the Cougars, who could never pull away from Colorado and squandered a late lead to go to overtime.
“He’s our hardest worker, super talented player, so I mean, hopefully we get him back,” Rob Wright III said of Saunders.
“... Having a guy like Richie out, I mean, it obviously hurt us. The game might have been closer than it should have been, but it was just good to pull through, and it’s next man up.”
Thanks to a career night from Wright, a near triple-double from AJ Dybantsa and some timely contributions from its bench, BYU was able to withstand the loss of Saunders and dig out a tough victory, moving to 19-6 on the season and 7-5 in Big 12 play.
“Glad we got the win, bottom line,“ Young said. ”You know, the Big 12’s a tough league. You see it across the landscape, not just in our league, but every league, it’s hard to win, bottom line.
“We had a lot working against us tonight. Proud of our guys for stepping up. We had some guys coming off the bench and make huge plays.”
Those bench heroes for the Cougars included Tyler Mrus, who was the initial post-injury sub for Saunders and scored six first half points, and Aleksej Kostic, whose 3-pointer with 1:21 left to play in overtime gave BYU a lead it would never surrender.
“You’ve got to find a way to come in and channel that emotion. I thought Tyler did a great job of coming in and making a couple shots, and then obviously (Kostic) hit the huge one there at the end,” Young said.
“It’s a team game, and guys got to come in off the bench and be ready to go, which we haven’t done a lot this year because (Saunders, Wright and Dybantsa) have been so good. But I was proud of those guys to come in ready to contribute to the win.”
Fresh off a career-high 30 points in his return to Baylor earlier this week, Wright quickly posted a new personal best with 39 points Saturday, doing so on 12 of 16 shooting — with four made 3-pointers — while adding five rebounds and four assists.
“I didn’t even know he had that many points, to be honest with you. I looked down after the game and was like, ‘Holy cow.’ He’s playing the game right now at an incredible pace in terms of his control,” Young said of Wright.
“... I think the last couple games he’s done a fantastic job of getting to the paint, playing under control, playing off two feet. ... He’s shooting the ball at a very high clip in catch and shoot situations, and that’s really helped his efficiency and helped him be a real scoring threat for us.”
With Saunders’ injury freeing up Colorado to put more men on Dybantsa, Wright pivoted from his typical point guard duties to play off the ball for much of the game, leveraging Dybantsa’s double teams for 29 points after halftime.
“It just felt good to get the win,” Wright said. “I mean, they were doubling AJ, so I was just playing off him, making shots early and just got rolling.
“When Richie went down, we knew somebody had to step up, so I guess it was me today.”
Amid the thick defensive coverage, Dybantsa accounted for seven of BYU’s 16 total turnovers and shot 6 of 20 from the field, but the freshman phenom still managed to provide 20 points, a career-high 13 rebounds and eight assists.
“My dad, he tells me I don’t rebound a lot, so I came in here and just, you know, wanted to prove to him that I can rebound,” Dybantsa said.
“But also, like, (my) shots weren’t falling, so I was trying to make sure that if the other team misses a shot, that they don’t get any second-chance opportunities.”
Added Young: “At (Dybantsa’s) size, to be able to have eight assists I think says a lot about his growth, you know, in terms of playing a little bit more under control. We’ve got to clean those turnovers up.”
It was a dogfight for much of the day, with BYU and Colorado knotted at 60 points apiece with just over nine minutes left to play in the second half.
The Cougars then put together a 11-4 run over the following four minutes to lead by seven, only to miss four of their next six field goal attempts as the Buffaloes made five of their next eight and forced overtime thanks to an Isaiah Johnson layup with 18 seconds remaining.
In overtime, however, BYU stood its ground and held Colorado to 2 of 10 shooting, with Dybantsa and Wright sinking five free throws after Kostic’s clutch triple to finally bury the Buffs.
“(We) got a little too comfortable. You know, we’re trying to get our defense right,” Young said. “... I’ll say it again, I fully expected this game to be very difficult. ... You knew (Colorado) was going to be ready to come in and fight, and that’s a good lesson for our guys.
“I’m just happy that our guys were able to pull a win out. Games like those can be very challenging, especially given what happened early in the game emotionally and so forth. I’m saying all that to say that was kind of the message in the in the timeout (before overtime), like, ‘Man, let’s let’s find a way to go out and get this thing done,’ and thankfully, we did.”
While BYU made 50% of its 3-pointers, the Cougars were inconsistent inside the arc to shoot 45% on 2-point shots, missing six layups and gifting the Buffs 21 points from 16 turnovers.
Conversely, Colorado shot 44% from the field and 28.1% from long distance, with BYU winning the rebound battle by a 46-39 margin.
Now winners of two straight, the Cougars will head down to Tucson for a rematch with Arizona at the McKale Center next Wednesday, with the Wildcats currently ranked No. 1 nationally but riding a 2-game losing skid, including Saturday night to No. 16 Texas Tech.
“I think we should have won the one at home. Losing by (three) really hurt us,” Dybantsa said of BYU’s first meeting with Arizona, a 86-83 loss.
“(There were) some defensive lapses that we shouldn’t have had, so I mean, we’re coming in ready. We’re going to have the scouting report ready, we’re going to trust the staff and go get a win in McKale.”
But whether Saunders is on the floor for such an effort — let alone the rest of the season — remains to be seen.