BYU vs. Gonzaga Notes & Quotes

BYU vs. Gonzaga Game Story

BYU vs. Gonzaga Box Score

BYU vs. Gonzaga Facebook Photo Gallery

Player Notes

Tyler Haws

Haws finished with 17 points, 4 rebounds and an assist. He was 9 of 9 from the free-throw line. The double figure game was the 101st of his career, the third most in BYU history.

Kyle Collinsworth

Collinsworth recorded his second triple-double of the season and the sixth in BYU history. Collinsworth is now the career leader in triple-doubles at BYU with two. He also leads the nation. Collinsworth scored 13 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out 10 assists to go with one steal. He moved ahead of Marty Perry for 17th on the career assists list with 305. He also moved ahead of Jared Miller for 15th on the career offensive rebounds list with 167.

Chase Fischer

Fischer scored 8 points and added 2 rebounds and an assist.

Luke Worthington

Worthington fouled out with 3:53 left in the game. He totaled 2 points, 2 rebounds and a steal in 14 minutes.

Isaac Neilson

Neilson started the game and grabbed a rebound in 8 minutes.

Anson Winder

Winder tied for the team-lead in points with 17 and was 7 of 8 from the free throw line. Winder added 3 rebounds and a steal.

Skyler Halford

Halford totaled 9 points and 1 rebound. Halford's points came on 3 of 4 from behind the arc.

Corbin Kaufusi

Kaufusi played the most minutes of any big man with 22 minutes on the floor. He finished with 5 points and 5 rebounds.

Jake Toolson

Toolson hit his first field goal since Chaminade (11/25/14) with a 3-pointer in the first half. Toolson added 3 rebounds and a steal.

Frank Bartley IV

Bartley had 6 points, 3 rebounds and an assist.

Team Notes

Collinsworth, Haws, Fischer, Worthington and Neilson started for the fourth straight game for BYU. The Cougars are now 3-1 with those starters.

Second half starters were Collinsworth, Fischer, Winder, Haws and Worthington.

Haws, Winder and Collinsworth scored in double digits, while Fischer finished with 8 and Halford with 9. Collinsworth led the team with 10 rebounds and 10 assists. 

The loss snapped BYU's 9-game conference home win streak dating back to last season.

The Cougars erased their largest deficit of the season of 16 in a span of nine minutes with a 28-12 run that tied the game heading to halftime. 

BYU took its first lead of the game with 19:21 left in the second half on a trio of Haws free throws which made it 46-43.

Runs

BYU cut Gonzaga's lead to 35-31 with 4 minutes left thanks to a 14-4 run, which included a 9-0 spurt. Collinsworth scored and Haws scored 4 points, while Toolson and Bartley each hit 3-pointers.

The Cougars used a 6-0 run in the second half to take their largest lead of the game at 55-49. The run came from a Kaufusi dunk, two Winder free throws and a layup from Collinsworth.

Quotes

BYU head coach Dave Rose

"It was a hard-fought game. I think both teams played extremely hard. It was the first league game and I think you could feel it. You could tell that it had some real emotion and urgency and tension to it." 

"We didn’t get off to the best start, but our guys found a way to correct that and get the thing tied before the half and came out in the second half and had a nice little run. Then we got a little bit impatient defensively, a little impatient offensively." 

"They were good. Their execution was good. They hit some big shots against our zone. Wiltjer is a guy we had a hard time finding in that zone. He hurt us in the high post, in the mid post, from the 3-point line. They’re a good team, and now we look forward to getting our guys ready for the Portland game on Monday."

"We got back into the game on some quick shots, some quick 3s, and I think that we made a run and then part of that second half we were driving that thing. I think we got ourselves in some positions in transition where we could have taken a little more advantage of driving that thing and getting to the rim. It got really physical to where guys weren’t getting calls at the rim, and I think that led to a little bit of it. Defensively, they were doing a really good job of kind of controlling the tempo of the game and looking for what they were trying to get and we kind of jumped out of position quite a few times trying to make plays. That kind of hurt us."

Kyle Collinsworth

"We let Pangos get off on a lot of shots. He’s a great player and when he gets in rhythm like that, he hit a few 3s and became really aggressive and we didn’t make the adjustments we needed to to stop him before he got going."

"I think we had enough in us to win it. We just needed to make the plays."

Anson Winder

On missing some players and others being banged up:

"It’s kind of tough. You want to go into these games having all your guys ready to roll, so it hurts. But you can’t control injuries. It’s part of the game. It’s up to us to practice and get better and roll with the guys that we have."

"Pangos is just a smart player. They’d throw the ball to one end of the floor and at the opposite end he’d rotate up and down along the 3-point line. Credit to him, he’s a smart player and a great shooter. We’ve got to do a better job of finding him next time."

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few

"That was a heckuva road win for us. We got pushed and pushed and tested by a really tough, hard-nosed, confident BYU team. It felt like four games within one. Luckily, we made the plays and tightened up the defense down the stretch, and that was the difference."

On Kevin Pangos big second half:

"Kevin got back to hunting shots. We are constantly on him to do that especially when teams want to go zone like that. Sometimes he's a pleaser and wants to move the ball and quarterback us, but he has to hunt shots and we have to do a better job of finding him."

Keys to winning the second half:

"A big key was Wiltjer settled down and found himself in some nice money areas against that zone. We found him and that was huge. Because we were scoring, we were able to set our defense. In the first half, our transition defense was a joke. They were running by us like they were roadrunner and we were coyote."

Matching up with BYU's 4-guard lineup:

"Wiltjer was finding success in there methodically taking their guys in. It's hard to ask him and Sabonis to go chasing guys off flare screens and down screens and ball screens. That's an area of growth that we can continue to work on."

Weathering BYU's runs:

"More experience. Pangos is pretty steady. Bell, even though he didn't have a high-point game, he did a great job. I thought he made Haws really earn all his shots. If you go back and look at some possessions, he's digging out rebounds. He's just a winner."

"Byron Wesley made plays that seniors make down the stretch with free throws. That was a huge basket at the end of the shot clock, and then he stripped Collinsworth or somebody at the other end, and that was basically the game."