TUCSON, Ariz. — BYU’s upset bid falls short.
The Cougars couldn’t topple No. 4 Arizona, with the shorthanded Wildcats scoring a 75-68 victory Wednesday night at McKale Center in Tucson.
BYU is now 19-7 on the season and 7-6 in Big 12 play.
3 takeaways
BYU fumbled its momentum in the first half’s final minute. For the opening 19 minutes, the Cougars hung in there with Arizona, even leading for nearly five minutes of action.
Two AJ Dybantsa free throws cut BYU’s deficit to just one point with 1:10 left to play in the half. Arizona guard Anthony Dell’Orso immediately countered with a 3-pointer, following which Keba Keita coughed up a turnover to give the Wildcats a fastbreak layup.
Dybantsa added another two points from the foul line, only for Dell’Orso to beat the halftime buzzer for another triple to blow the roof off of McKale Center and extend Arizona’s lead to seven points.
BYU could have ended the period within arm’s reach of the Wildcats, or even in the lead, but instead fell behind by more than two possessions’ worth of points.
The Cougars did cut Arizona’s 16-point lead to just five in a four-minute span in the second half, but similar to the first half, they weren’t able to capitalize further and ultimately lost by seven.
BYU’s 3-pointers didn’t fall. If the Cougars wanted any chance of upsetting Arizona, they were going to need plenty of help from behind the arc.
No such help came.
BYU made just 5 of 19 (26%) 3-pointers. All five makes came from starters, with the bench only having two total attempts from deep.
Conversely, Arizona torched the Cougars for nine triples at a 43% shooting clip. While Arizona started the night shooting 1 of 8 from 3, they drained 8 of their final 13 attempts.
The Cougars really missed Richie Saunders. Dybantsa and Rob Wright III scored 48 combined points on Wednesday. The other eight BYU players to take the floor combined for 20.
More concerningly, BYU’s bench only scored six points in 55 collective minutes.
Mihailo Boskovic, starting in place of Saunders, missed all three shots he took and finished with a plus/minus of minus six in 11 minutes of play.
Aleksej Kostic shot 1 of 3 with two turnovers, and Tyler Mrus missed his only shot attempt of the night.
Kennard Davis Jr. did score 10 points with two rebounds and two steals, but all of those numbers came in the second half.