BYU vs. Utah State Notes & Quotes

BYU vs. Utah State Game Story

BYU vs. Utah State Box Score

BYU vs. Utah State Photo Gallery

BYU vs. Utah State Dave Rose Postgame Interview

BYU vs. Utah State Player Postgame Interviews

BYU vs. Utah State Highlights

Player Notes

Against his former team, Kyle Davis recorded his fourth double-double of the season with 14 points and 14 rebounds. He added 4 assists and a block. Davis has now scored in double digits and grabbed seven or more rebounds in every game this season.

Kyle Collinsworth tied his career high with 11 assists and added 8 points, 7 rebounds, a season-high 2 blocks and a steal. His 10-assist game is the 11th of his career setting a new career mark at BYU passing Matt Montague’s 10 career double-digit assist games. He passed John Benson for 9th in career rebounds. Tonight’s start was his 102nd which ties him for 14th all-time at BYU with Jimmer Fredette and Eric Nielsen.

Chase Fischer led all scorers with 24 points and added 4 rebounds and 3 steals. He was 4 of 9 from behind the arc and tied Mark Heslop for 12th all-time in 3-pointers made. It was the fourth straight game where he has shot 40 percent or better from 3-point range and scored 19 or more points.

Nick Emery came off the bench to provide 17 points, 6 rebounds and an assist. It was his fifth straight game scoring in double digits.

Corbin Kaufusi fouled out with 3:18 after scoring 10 points and grabbing 5 rebounds, while adding 2 blocks and a steal.

Nate Austin finished with 3 rebounds and 2 blocks. He passed Ken Roberts and tied Eric Nielsen for 14th in career blocks at BYU with 74.

Jake Toolson started his fifth game of the season and finished with 4 points, a rebound and an assist.

Team Notes

For the second straight game and fifth time this season, Fischer, Collinsworth, Toolson, Davis and Kaufusi started for the Cougars. BYU is now 4-1 with that starting five.

BYU outscored Utah State 42-22 in the point as Kaufusi and Davis combined for 22 (2 of Davis' points came at the free throw line) of those points down low.

Three Cougars were perfect from the free-throw line as BYU finished 12 of 15. Fischer was 6 for 6, while Davis and Emery were each 2 for 2.

Runs

An early 6-0 run took BYU’s first lead at 10-8 at 15:12 on consecutive layups by Kaufusi, Toolson and Collinsworth.

Fischer put together a 6-0 run of his own to make it 18-14 BYU with 11:45 left in the first half, making two 3-pointers.

A 7-0 run put BYU up 25-16 with 7:51 left in the half, as an Emery 3-pointer, a Davis layup and a Collinsworth jumper extended BYU’s lead to nine.

BYU ended the half on an 8-0 run and opened the second half with a 4-0 run on two Kaufusi layups. To end the half, Davis and Collinsworth each scored four points, two each from the line and another on a layup. The run gave the Cougars their biggest lead of the first half at 15 points.

An 8-0 run pushed BYU’s lead to 20 at 60-40 with 10:29 left in the game. Fischer scored four points, Emery two and Toolson two.

Quotes

BYU head coach Rose

“I thought it was a hard-fought, well-played game. Both teams executed well without a lot of turnovers. I thought we were really focused and dialed in defensively. We made it really tough on Utah State, especially driving to the basket. Offensively, I thought we were pretty balanced and did a good job of getting the ball into the post. There was a lot of positives for us, and we're looking forward to a big game on Saturday.”

On the defensive effort:

“We were really active. We challenged passes on the catch and contested the shots. But, we also rebounded the ball a lot and didn’t give them the second chance. This team has the potential to be a good defensive team because we have good length and good size. I thought we were really good the last eight minutes of the first half and the middle eight minutes of the second half. It’s just concentration of everyone and buckling down and taking responsibility for what they need to do.” 

On Nick Emery:

“I was pleased with his execution. We missed him the other night and I challenged him to go out there and play hard and give it his best effort. He was good defensively, and offensively, he hit a couple of big shots early, which is big for the kid’s confidence. He’s definitely established himself as one of the top eight on our team.”

On the next game against Colorado:

“What stands out is that it’s a team that challenges you on the defensive end. They’ll make things really hard on us. Rebounding the ball and not turning the ball over will be huge for us in that game.”

Kyle Davis

Emotions on playing Utah State:

“I think it was a little weird when I first looked over and seeing the school I used to play at and a former teammate. But once the ball is tipped, it just becomes another game you have to focus in and play. I mean, you want to play good against every team and certainly, you want to play good against your former team.”

Nick Emery and his efforts:

“​Nick is a great guy. We're excited that he's back. He brings so much energy and he works so hard. You can see it by watching him that he just puts everything into it. To have that energy and that threat is huge for us, so we're glad that he's back.”

Chase Fischer

Is the defense better than last year:

“I think our defense this year has been a lot better than last year. We have a lot of guys buying into working on it this year and we have the personnel to do it. I think we're really big. Other than those flurry of threes at the end, I thought we played really well.”

Best performance yet:

“Absolutely. We put two really good halves together this game, excluding the last two minutes. We played well offensively. We executed. We got the ball into the post and we guarded well and I think it's our best 40 minutes performance yet.”  

Utah State Head Coach Tim Duryea

“I told our team I was very proud of them in the second half. That was the Aggie team from last year. Offensively, we had no aggressiveness after about the first three or four minutes of the first half. They are very good defensively and they kind of put us on our heels. They guarded us exactly like we thought they would, but they are very good and we just did not respond at all. In the second half, we kind of threw caution to the wind a little bit. We got downhill at the basket and threw the ball to the roller in our pick and roll stuff. We were just a totally different team offensively.”

On Chris Smith:

“I am proud of Chris Smith for the job he did defensively on Kyle Collinsworth. That guy is a hard guy to guard and I thought Chris for the most part did a really good job”.

On Jalen Moore:

“His post defense was the best game of his career in that respect. There is a lot of really good things to take out of the game. A Mountain West level opponent – you can’t go to their court and go eight or nine minutes and not score and expect to win the game.”

On not scoring:

“There was more missed shots from lack of aggression than anything else. They are so good in transition if you go seven, eight and nine minutes in a row and never have to take the ball out of the net they are going to put too much pressure on you defensively to guard them effectively.”

On BYU’s defense:

“They are tremendous [defensively]. Dave Rose does a great job year-in and year-out defensively. If you watch them on film and you think they are good and you look at their stats and they are holding people to 36 percent from the field and 30 percent from three, there is a reason. They are all very good defenders. They have bought in to the philosophy.” ​