Analysis: Disappointing loss to No. 5 Houston aside, BYU acquitted itself well in Big 12 tournament

KANSAS CITY — The end goal — a Big 12 tournament championship — was not accomplished on Thursday night, but the unranked BYU Cougars can tiredly walk away from T-Mobile Center after losing 73-66 to No. 5 Houston in a hard-fought quarterfinal knowing that they are clearly back on track.

Expectations aren’t as high as they were when the season began — when guys such as Dawson Baker and Richie Saunders were healthy — but they have been revived somewhat by BYU’s late-season surge and all-around competitiveness against a Houston team that has dominated it in recent years.

“It has brought our team closer together,” coach Kevin Young said of the 2-1 run in tournament. “It has brought our fanbase closer together. … It has galvanized the team and Cougar Nation.”

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In defeat Thursday in front of a pro-BYU crowd, Young’s team showed against one of the top teams in the country, last year’s national championship runner-up and Big 12 champ, that it could be a force to be reckoned with in the NCAA Tournament.

That’s mission accomplished, despite the bitter end. BYU can probably expect a 6 seed in the Big Dance when the selections are revealed on Sunday; Because the Cougars don’t play on Sundays, the only sites they can go to are Oklahoma City, Buffalo, Portland or Greenville, South Carolina.

“We beat two top-10 teams (Iowa State and Texas Tech) this season,” said freshman star AJ Dybantsa. “We were within two possessions of beating two other top 10 teams (Arizona and Houston).

“We proved to ourselves that we can play with the best. We just gotta finish and close out our games.”

Really, that was the story of how second-seeded Houston (27-5) defeated BYU (23-11) for the fifth straight time.

Much like last month in Provo, the red Cougars simply made more plays down the stretch, getting huge 3-pointers from Chase McCarty and Kingston Flemings in the final four minutes, and Emmanuel Sharp made six free throws to ice it.

BYU suffered through a prolonged scoring drought, ended only by a 3 from freshman Aleksej Kostic.

Dybantsa hit a 3-pointer with 4.7 seconds left to finish with 26 points on 7 of 18 shooting while playing all 40 minutes, but that was too little, too late, though it did put his name in the Big 12 tournament record books.

The Cougars and their fans will remember this game as one that got away — possibly their best-ever chance to knock off mighty Houston away from the Marriott Center now and in the foreseeable future — and the one in which the all-everything Dybantsa could not buy a call down the stretch.

And they wouldn’t be wrong.

Having trailed by six points or more at halftime in all four of their previous Big 12 games against Houston, the blue Cougars played well in the first half Thursday and led by seven before seldom-used sub Kalifa Sakho got a rebound and made a 3-point play to make it 41-37 at the break.

Milos Uzan hit a 3-pointer on UH’s first possession of the second half, and BYU’s lead was gone. The game seesawed from there — there were eight lead changes and five ties — with neither team leading by more than four until Houston pulled away at the end with free throws.

Wright, who had 15 points and five assists in 38 minutes, made one of two free throws with 6:52 left to cut Houston’s lead to 59-58. BYU then had six empty possessions, which in effect cost it the chance to spring the upset as an 11-point underdog.

“At the end, we had some turnovers and they made some big shots, and we missed some shots,” Wright said. “I don’t think we (ran out of gas), although playing three games in three days is hard.”

After committing only six turnovers in the 77-66 loss last month in Provo, BYU committed 18 on Thursday, which Houston turned into 19 points. The defending champs also turned 14 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points.

BYU had nine offensive boards, for 10 points.

“They just snatched the ball away from us a couple of times, and they got energy and extra possessions out of it,” Dybantsa said. “We can’t let them do that.”

Houston also won the rebounding battle, 37-30.

BYU made eight 3-pointers — Kostic and Dybantsa drained three apiece — while Houston made just five, but those were absolute daggers, particularly the freshman Flemings’ triple with 1:27 left that pushed his team’s lead to 67-61.

After McCarty’s 3 gave UH a 64-58 lead, Dybantsa lost the ball going up for a shot, and there was definitely contact, but no call came.

He went to the line only once in the second half. Several times after no-calls, Dybantsa glared at the officials as he headed back down the court.

“I mean, yeah,” the freshman said when he was asked if he got a fair whistle. “Every game you are going to get fouled and they are not going to call fouls every single game, so you can’t complain too much.”

After scoring 40 on Tuesday and 27 on Wednesday, Dybantsa finished with 26 Thursday and broke the record held by Kevin Durant for most points scored in a single Big 12 tournament.

Whatever the case, BYU showed that it is ready to make a run in the NCAA Tournament — which couldn’t be said of this team a couple of weeks ago — and its best player said he’s ready to lead the charge. He believes he can be the King of March.

“Yeah, definitely, if you want to say that,” he said, “but it takes a team to win. If they want me to be that leading guy, whatever it takes, then I can do that.”

Young has found the right buttons to push, and the players have responded when there were cries from the hinterlands that some players had packed it in. That wasn’t even close to being accurate.

“We’ve never lost that belief, never stopped giving that effort,” said reserve Dominique Diomande, the Washington transfer who has been a valuable late-season find and had another windmill dunk in the first half on a fast break and played some great defense in 14 minutes.

The next step is for guys such as Diomande and Khadim Mboup to give a little more offensively; BYU’s bench was outscored 14-4.

The game started with a Dybantsa turnover and a dunk for Houston’s Chris Cenac on the other end of the floor, and it momentarily looked as if BYU was in trouble in the energy department.

Keba Keita missed a dunk and Davis and Kostic missed open 3-pointers before the under 16 timeout came, and BYU was trailing 8-4 — better than last year when it was behind 15-0 out of the gates and never really recovered.

But the Cougars recovered nicely after taking that initial blow, and found their legs six minutes in, as Wright hit a triple and Dybantsa got on the board with a 3-point play.

BYU got its first lead with 4:29 remaining in the half, as Dybantsa hit a couple free throws. Toward the end of the half, the role players started contributing, after Wright and Dybantsa had scored 28 of BYU’s first 30 points.

Davis made a 3-point play, Kostic drained back-to-back 3-pointers, and Diomande had the dunk that gave BYU a 41-34 lead.

In building the 41-37 halftime lead, BYU shot 52% from the field and 63% (5 of 8) from 3-point range.

In the second half, BYU shot 32% from the field (9 of 28). That proved costly.

BYU scored 29 points in the last nine minutes and 30 seconds of the first half, after netting just 12 in the first 10-plus minutes.

It was BYU’s first halftime lead over Houston since it joined the Big 12, as it trailed by seven, 17, 19 and six in the four previous meetings, all losses.

“I think we found our identity as a team,” Wright said, while also noting that if a 3-point attempt from Kennard Davis Jr. that rattled in and out with just under four minutes remaining had fallen, it would have been a different outcome. “We are just figuring out who we are as a team.”

And just in the nick of time.