BYU vs. Gonzaga postgame notes and quotes

Player Notes

Tyler Haws finished with 19 points for his 28th game in double figures. Haws now has 1,022 career points to move him past Dave Eastis for 44th all-time at BYU.
Brandon Davies finished the game with 12 points and 11 rebounds for his 9th double-double this season. He’s now tied for 11th place all-time at BYU with 22 career double-doubles.
Davies has moved past Bruce Burton into 10th place all-time at BYU with 786 career rebounds. He also now has 1,576 career points, moving him past Lee Cummard into 11th place all-time at BYU.
Brock Zylstra finished with 10 points, making three 3-pointers for his 12 th game this season making more than two 3-pointers.
Tyler Haws reached double-digit points with a jumper at the 5:07 mark of the first half to cut Gonzaga’s lead to 29-25.
Brock Zylstra reached double-digit points with a 3-pointer at the 7:22 mark of the second half to cut Gonzaga’s lead to four, up 56-52.
Brandon Davies reached double-figure points with a free throw at the 4:18 mark of the second half to tie the game at 60-60.
Craig Cusick reached double-figure points with a free throw with seven seconds left in the game to cut Gonzaga’s lead to two at 67-65.

Team Notes

Dave Rose started Brandon Davies, Tyler Haws, Brock Zylstra, Craig Cusick and Matt Carlino tonight for the fourth-straight game.
Tonight’s lone dunk for BYU came from Brandon Davies at the 8:08 mark in the first half.

Game Trends

Between 8:43 and 5:40 in the first half, BYU went on a 9-2 run, cutting Gonzaga’s lead to two at 25-23.
Gonzaga’s last field goal in the first half was at the 7:30 mark.
Between 10:10 and 9:10 in the second half, BYU went on a 5-0 run to cut Gonzaga’s lead to six points, up 54-48. Three of the points in the run came from Tyler Haws.

BYU head coach Dave Rose
“I’m really proud of our guys. I thought we competed really hard. It was a physical battle, but both teams competed. I thought that our guys got us in a position where we could have won the game. A missed rebound here and a couple missed shots; it could have been a different story.”

“You have to give these guys credit. They came in here and did what they had to do to win. They are a well-coached team. They are talented and deep. The crowd was great.”

Brock Zylstra
“We are in a better spot than we were against Saint Mary’s. We are playing a lot better even though we lost two games in a row. You can ask any one of the guys or the coaches, we are playing better as a team. We played the No. 1 team in the nation, but we just couldn’t make plays.”

Brandon Davies
“It’s crazy. It didn’t really hit me that this was my last home game until I was walking out with my family and my fellow seniors. Like Brock said, we have to give our fans a lot of credit for coming out and supporting us. I had stupid fouls coming out. I came out super excited to play. As you saw, that hurt us. You have to be smart.”

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few
“I knew we were going to have to work. I knew it was going to be an incredible environment and BYU was going to give us everything we could handle, especially in this building. One thing they do under Dave [Rose] is play unbelievably hard. They not only did that tonight but they stepped up and made big shots. They deserve a lot of credit for taking it down to the wire.”

“Their zone was very content to take away Kelly [Olynyk] at the high post. They were squeezing in there hard. They play so hard in their zone that it was tough to find any openings.”