BYU Beats UCF To Win First Big 12 Tournament Game
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — BYU fended off UCF, 87-73, in the second round of the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament at T-Mobile Center on Wednesday.
BYU (23-9) became the third of the new Big 12 schools to win their Big 12 Tournament debut, joining UCF and Cincinnati, which won theirs on Tuesday. The No. 5 Cougars will play No. 4 seed Texas Tech at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
UCF (17-15), the No. 12 seed, saw their time in Kansas City come to an end. The Knights will wait to see if they get a postseason invite on Sunday, most likely to the NIT.
The two new Big 12 schools turned their third matchup of the season into a blowout, a near-classic and a blowout again all in 40 minutes.
At several points in the first half BYU had an 18-point lead and scored 14 straight points to build what seemed like an insurmountable lead. But the Knights slowly cut into it, keeping it manageable going into halftime and then turned it back into a ball game in the second half.
Darius Johnson was key to the comeback. He finished with 32 points and his 3-pointer with 13:36 left in the second cut BYU’s lead to three points, 59-56.
After that, BYU went on a quick 8-0 run to pad the lead back to nine points, highlighted by a Richie Saunders 3-pointer to make it 67-56.
The Cougars maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way and never let the Knights back into the game.
The Cougars had six players score at least eight points, led by Fousseyni Traore (14 points), Dallin Hall (13 points), Saunders (13 points) and Trevin Knell (12 points).
Along with Johnson, Antwann Jones scored 13 points and Sellers added 12 points.
BYU built a 21-3 lead six minutes into the game and the Knights had to play catch-up the entire contest. The Cougars shot 48% from the field but 47% from the 3-point line as Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year Jaxson Robinson drained a pair.
The Knights moved into a full court press and the defensive pressure didn’t pay off immediately. But, by the end of the half the Knights had the lead cut to nine points, 47-38, with help from a 9-for-10 clip at the free-throw line and 25 combined points from Sellers and Johnson.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
