BYU vs. Portland Notes & Quotes

BYU vs. Portland Game Story

BYU vs. Portland Box Score

BYU vs. Portland Facebook Photo Gallery

Player Notes

Tyler Haws

Haws finished with 24 points, 6 assists (tying his career high), 5 rebounds and 2 steals. The double figure scoring game was the 102nd of the career and the 20-point game was the 59th of his career. His 2 steals moved him into a tie with Mark Bigelow for 15th on the career list with 116 steals.

Kyle Collinsworth

Collinsworth tallied 21 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks and 2 steals. 

Chase Fischer

Fischer finished with 16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.

Anson Winder

Winder sccored 22 points and added 2 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Winder is averaging 21.3 points over the last three games.

Luke Worthington

Worthington grabbed 2 rebounds in 20 minutes.

Skyler Halford

Halford finished with 12 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds and a steal. His consecutive free throw streak was snapped at 25.

Corbin Kaufusi

Kaufusi tallied 2 points, 5 rebounds and an assist.

Team Notes

Fischer, Haws, Collinsworth, Winder and Worthington started for BYU. It's the first start of the season for Winder and the first for this group of starters. The Cougars are now 1-0 with those starters.

Haws, Fischer, Winder, Collinsworth and Halford each scored in double figures.

Collinsworth led the Cougars in rebounds with 8, while Haws and Halford dished out 6 assists to tie for the team lead.

The Cougars used a four guard lineup for the majority of the game against Portland. BYU played with two forwards three times throughout the game, while the four guard lineup was in for 35 minutes.

It was the first game this season where BYU won while being outrebounded. The Pilots grabbed 36 rebounds to the Cougars 35.

BYU is now 8-0 when scoring 90 or more points.

Runs:

BYU used a 10-0 run to take a 20-15 lead with 10 minutes left in the first half. Haws scored 5 of the 10 points ,while Fischer added 3 points and Winder 2. 

The Cougars started the second half on a quick 5-0 run to take a 48-37 lead. Collinsworth scored 3 points on an and-1 while Haws added 2 points in transition thanks to a steal.

BYU pushed its lead to 17 at 67-50 thanks to a 13-0 run. Halford hit two 3-pointers for 6 points, while Collinsworth and Winder each added 4 points and Kaufusi scored 2.

Quotes

BYU head coach Dave Rose

"We played quite a few games here in a short period of time, and it's a really good win for us, our first conference win."

Starting Anson:

"It was really pretty simple based on the way we started the last two games. We wanted to get off to a better start. It seemed like our second group came in both of those games and got us back tied or in the lead. Without a practice inbetween, you start trying to invent something else, it's difficult. So we just went with the lineup that we had been playing most in the past couple of games that had been doing pretty well and executing pretty well in the guts of the game and that's kind of how we decided to do it. Without a lot of time to prepare for it, we wanted to see if we could get a better start. I don't know what we'll do going forward with Santa Clara, but we will see."

Size:

"I think we knew just from watching film that if they were going with that big group they were going to play zone starting out. We felt comfortable with our four shooters on the floor. We felt like we could spread it out. We actually got out to a decent start then we hit a flat spot where we missed quite a few shots in a row and it got even. One thing I was impressed with in the entire game was how we shared the ball. The ball moved from one side to the other. We got good penetration, we got it kicked out. We got a couple offensive rebounds and got it kicked out for a three. I thought Corbin got some quality minutes for us against some good big guys in our league. I can see some real improvement with our group tonight."

Focus:

"We were playing great defense in the second half until about the 7 minute mark. I think they had four offensive rebounds with 7 minutes left and ended up with 10. They score a lot of their points late in the game. They're good at it, they're physical, but we were really good early in the game and I don't know if it's the size and the fatigue and the foul trouble. But we'll watch it and look at it. I thought defensively the first 12 minutes of the second half we were really good."

Patience and attacking:

"We got a lot of points in the paint in transition. We were able to get to the rim off of a steal or a long rebound, but then we got our guards posted up. I remember Kyle a couple of plays where he posted up and made a nice move, then the second defender came and he dished it out to Corbin. It's hard for guards to defend in the post. It's just something you don't do a lot. And if we can get Tyler and Kyle posted down there and get some easy baskets, that will help us because our post points this year are kind of few and far between. We need to score in that area. Anson does a good job driving it and the other two do a good job posting it."

Tyler's ankle:

"I think we all saw a little more active Ty. I think he was involved in more plays, 50/50 balls, where he actually went and got them. It was more like the Dec. 12 Ty, and Ty's been really good for us the past couple of weeks. I was encouraged a lot tonight by some of the situations. He initiated the contact a lot. I think he was really looking for space in the last couple of games. He's telling us that he's felling better. Tomorrow he probably won't do much, but Wednesday hopefully he will get a good solid practice in. I hope that happens, we'll see."

Tyler Haws

On his ankle:

"It's feeling a lot better. Each day it gets a little bit better. It feels good. I feel great. It was tough the first game back just because it hurts to run, but I'm feeling better and better each day. I'm trying to get as much rest as I can. These couple days we have before our next game are going to be big. I think I will be able to practice more. The swelling has gone out of my ankle and I feel great. I felt close to 100 percent out there tonight."

On Anson starting:

"It was great. It feels like we play that line up a lot during the game, so Anson is more than capable of giving us a good start. We like having him on the floor."

Small against Portland's bigs:

"That was a little weird, but we knew we were going to play a lot of zone too. We wanted to just battle and get the game going up and down, get some clean rebounds so we could get out in transition and really play the way we want to play. We did that the majority of the night. There were a few lapses, but for the most part we got out in transition."

On preparation:

"It is tough with a short turnaround, but we got together and talked about them last night and this morning. It seems like this season we're used to short turnarounds. I'm proud of the way our guys competed tonight."

Skyler Halford

Hot start:

"I think our defense fueled our offense. We got a couple steals there in the beginning, some stops, some rebounds. That's what pretty much fuels our offense anytime. If you can get some good defenseive shots, some rebounds off missed shots, you can really get going."

Looking past losses:

"It's tough to lose, but you have to move past it and look forward to the next game. Just like we did with this game, we won and we are going to move on to the next one and continue to focus on the game at hand."

Portland head coach Eric Reveno

On the late second half run:

“We just rotated guys in and stayed fresh and stayed with what we do and we started making some shots. We had gotten some shots but they didn’t fall and they finally started going for us there late in the game. The reality is, it’s hard to try and outscore them. To come in here and win a shootout against them is tough, ultimately we lost the second half by three and that’s hard to do here. They're so skilled and balanced and talented that they move the ball and make you pay and that’s what they did when we pressure them a little bit.”

Hardest part in coming to Provo:

“It’s just a quality basketball team. They’re so good, skilled and competitive and they may not have a lot of size but they’re very physical and make it hard to do what you want to do. We made them go to plan B a little bit, they didn’t get as many 3s as they normally do, but they did a great job of getting out in transition and getting easy buckets at the rim. I tried to use timeouts to break momentum and get our guys back on track, but they do a good job of keeping the pressure on here.”

Using size to defend BYU:

“It was something we did against UNLV and we’ve done it before. It’s our best rebounding lineup, so we’re trying to create an advantage and not just do what they want us to do. I was just trying to disrupt them early on and knew it wouldn’t sustain a long time, especially when our three big guys got in foul trouble."