Cougars advance to WCC final as Collinsworth records sixth triple-double

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LAS VEGAS – Junior Kyle Collinsworth recorded his sixth triple-double to tie the NCAA career record to lead BYU past Portland 84-70 in the West Coast Conference semifinals Monday night.

“I thought that our guys were really good in the first half," BYU basketball coach Dave Rose said. "I thought we got our hands in a lot of balls, which led to some breakouts for us. Chase was terrific. Our guys were really good at finding him.”

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Collinsworth finished with 13 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists and two steals in the win. Chase Fischer’s 24 points were a game high and Tyler Haws contributed 18 points and three assists.

Skyler Halford scored 10 points off the bench and Corbin Kaufusi finished with a career-high nine points and grabbed six rebounds.

Kaufusi opened the game with the first BYU points at the 19:03 mark. Following triples by Fischer and Haws, the Cougars got out to a 23-14 lead at the 12:08 mark as part of a 9-2 run.

Fischer and Haws connected on three more from deep during a 13-2 run to extend BYU’s lead to 20 at 38-18 with 5:06 left in the half. With 1:08 on the clock, Collinsworth’s dunk maintained the Cougars’ 20-point lead, 42-22.

BYU entered the half up 42-24 with Fischer leading the way with 20 points, going 6 of 8 from beyond the arc. Haws followed with 12 points with Collinsworth finishing the half with four points, eight rebounds and eight assists. BYU made 8 of 12 3-pointers and shot 57.7 percent from the field.

Kaufusi and Collinsworth scored the first eight BYU points in the second half with a putback dunk and two three-point plays to maintain a 22-point lead, 50-28 at the 17:28 mark. Halford added two more buckets from deep to keep a comfortable 62-40 lead with 12:02 left in the game.

Collinsworth recorded his 10th assist of the game on a Haws layup with 8:05 on the clock to keep a 23-point lead. With 6:45 remaining, Collinsworth’s points at the charity stripe gave him his sixth career triple-double to help the Cougars take the game 84-70. He now shares the record with Michael Anderson (Drexel, 1985-88) and Shaquille O’Neal (LSU, 1990-92).

“Everybody was yelling, all the BYU fans were yelling while I was shooting it, so it was good. I’m glad it went in," Collinsworth said. "All the credit goes to my teammates. We have a lot of shooters and Chase made a ton of three’s. Our teammates and our pace, it makes it easy to get a triple double.”

BYU finished with a 55.4 shooting percentage, scored 22 points off the Pilots’ 13 turnovers and outrebounded them 30-26 to continue its eight-game winning streak.

The Cougars advance to the WCC championship game and will face No. 1 seed Gonzaga on Tuesday at 6 p.m. PDT. The game will be televised live on ESPN and broadcast on the Cougar IMG Sports Network on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM.