San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
COLD SHOOTING, HOT COUGARS DOOM USD
With interim coach Rodney Terry at the helm, the Longhorns focused on basketball. Marcus Carr scored 12 points in Texas’ 5646 win over Oklahoma State, and Texas (13-2, 2-1 Big 12) improved to 6-1 under Terry.
“I’m proud of our guys,” Terry said. “And I said to them the other day, probably more than any team in the country, this group has really stuck together and persevered through some adversity and some challenges. They’ve really focused on what they can control and I think just kind of locked in and enjoyed playing with each other and being around each other every day.”
Texas bounced back from Tuesday’s 116-103 loss to Kansas State, despite shooting just 31.5 percent the field against Oklahoma State. The Longhorns held the Cowboys to 30.4 percent shooting.
“We said that we needed to have a gritty team today,” Terry said. “You know, the team that was going to come in and play their hardest today and really try to max out defensively was going to have a chance to win this game today.”
Kalib Boone had 16 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks for Oklahoma State (9-6, 1-2), which narrowly lost to now-no. 3 Kansas on Dec. 31 and had a solid win over West Virginia before Saturday’s loss.
Oklahoma State’s Moussa Cisse, the 7-foot-1 forward who leads the Big 12 with 9.9 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game, missed the game with an ankle injury.
“We missed him throughout the overall game, both offense and defense,” guard Johnmichael Wright said. “He’s a big presence.”
Even without Cisse, Oklahoma State blocked 12 shots. Boone’s six swats matched a career high and forward Tyreek Smith matched his career best with three.
Texas led 32-24 at halftime despite shooting 32.1% before the break. Eight Longhorns scored in the first half, but none posted more than five points. Texas held Oklahoma State to 33.3% shooting and outscored the Cowboys 12-7 from the free-throw line in the first 20 minutes.
An alley-oop dunk by Boone cut Texas’ lead to 43-41, and Caleb Asberry followed with a 3-pointer that finally gave the Cowboys a 44-43 lead with 8:20 remaining.
Oklahoma State didn’t make another field goal. A 3-pojnter by Texas’ Brock Cunningham with about two minutes remaining put the Longhorns up 53-46, the highlight of their 12-1 run over the final six minutes to end the game.
The “BYU, BYU, BYU” chants began with a minute remaining and the visiting BYU Cougars cruising to a 68-48 victory over the University of San Diego at Jenny Craig Pavilion.
BYU (13-6, 3-1 WCC) was invited to the NCAA Tournament last March, and it looks like coach Mark Pope has that kind of team again. His squad jumped out to a 17-point first-half lead and was never seriously threatened by coach Steve Lavin’s cold-shooting Toreros (8-10, 1-3 WCC).
Following Thursday’s 84-82 home loss to Pa- cific, in which the visitors cashed a trio of 3-pointers in the final 2:27 to erase a six-point USD lead, Lavin talked about the importance of striking a balance between limiting dribble penetration and protecting the 3point line.
And sure enough, BYU connected on only four of 15 attempts.
However, the issue on this day was making a 3-pointer as the Toreros — a 37 percent 3point shooting team on the season — missed their first nine long-range attempts, went 2 for 14 in the first half while falling behind
Pepperdine at Toreros Thursday:
Pavilion
On the air:
BSSD
by 17 and finished 3 for 23 for the game.
Fousseyni Traore (15 points, five rebounds, two blocks) provided a rugged inside presence for the Cougars, who finished with a 33-28 edge in rebounds, 36-26 advantage in points in the paint and 29-0 edge in bench scoring while limiting USD to five secondchance points.
Eric Williams Jr. (14 points, eight rebounds) and Wayne Mckinney III (10 points) paced the Toreros. Guards Jase Townsend (0 for 7) and Marcellus Earlington (0 for 4) embodied the rough shooting night from 3-point range.
“They got into passing lanes and we ended up dribbling too much,” Lavin said. “We like to reverse the ball, get it inside, get the defense moving and get those rhythm 3s. Just better ball movement and man movement will lead to higher quality shots. So it’s really more about quality than quantity.”
USD trailed 14-10 after a Townsend jumper at 13:10 of the first half but then didn’t score again until 3:03 when Williams finally knocked down a 3-ball.
By then, the Cougars led 27-13 and had taken control with a combination of scrappy man-toman defense (nine forced turnovers in the first half) that they turned into eight fastbreak points.
BYU carried a 31-19 lead into halftime and USD never got closer than 11 in the second half as the cold shooting combined with BYU’S steady offense negated any attempts at a comeback.
BYU’S last visit to San Diego ended with a 82-75 loss to San Diego State on Nov. 11 in the second game of the season, and the Cougars’ résumé includes an 8380 win over 21st ranked Creighton on Dec. 10.
Next up for USD: Pepperdine visits on Thursday. BYU hosts No. 9 Gonzaga the same night.
“They were as impressive as any team we have seen this year,” Lavin said. “In conference play, there is a compressed margin for error. It’s a night-to-night deal where you’ve got to solve the riddle. Tonight, 23 (3-point attempts) were not the answer.”