BYU vs. San Francisco Notes & Quotes

BYU vs. San Francisco Game Story

BYU vs. San Francisco Box Score

BYU vs. San Francisco Photo Gallery

BYU vs. San Francisco Highlights

BYU vs. San Francisco Postgame Interviews Seljaas/Fischer

BYU vs. San Francsico Postgame Interview Rose

Player Notes

• Kyle Collinsworth finished with 13 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds. He passed Andy Toolson for 19th on the career scoring list.
• Collinsworth's double-figure scoring is the 80th time he's done it, which ties him with Ken Roberts for 11th most in BYU history.
• Nate Austin played in the 133rd game of his career tying Jackson Emery for the sixth most games played at BYU.
• Chase Fischer finished with 25 points and was 5 of 10 from behind the arc. He added 4 assists and 2 rebounds. His five 3-pointers passed Lee Cummard and Matt Carlino for seventh in career 3-pointers made. Fischer now has 12 games with five 3-pointers or more and 28 games with three 3-pointers or more.
• Nick Emery scored 21 points and was 3 of 6 from 3-point range. He added 5 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal. The 20-point game passes Mekeli Wesley and Devin Durrant for the fifth most by a freshman in BYU history. The three 3-pointers is his eighth game with at least three and is the most by a freshman passing Matt Carlino. Emery also passed Carlino and Michael Vranes for the third most 3-pointers by a freshman.
• Zac Seljaas made 6 of 10 3-pointers on his way to 20 points. It was his most points in a first half with 14 coming on 4 of 6 from behind the arc. Seljaas added 5 rebounds, a block, a steal and an assist. Seljaas passed Robbie Reid for the sixth most 3-pointers made by a freshman.
• Kyle Davis finished with 14 points, 9 rebounds and a career-high 4 blocks.

Team Notes

• The Cougars are on a 14-game home win streak and an 8-game WCC home win streak
• BYU improved to 3-1 in the WCC and further distanced the top three teams from the rest of the pack.
• BYU is now 3-0 in January.
• For the sixth straight game, Fischer (17 season/50 career), Emery (12/12), Collinsworth (17/111), Davis (17/17) and Austin (6/59). BYU is 5-1 with those starters. 
• Three players scored 20 points for the first time since Central Michigan on Dec. 18. Fischer, Emery and Seljaas each broke 20 as Davis and Collinsworth also scored in double figures.
• Over three minutes in the first half, BYU equaled its largest lead at 40-37 after having been down as many as five. Seljaas scored 11 points in three minutes off three 3-pointers and a layup after a steal of his own. Collinsworth was the only other Cougar to score in that time and continued the streak with two layups of his own to put BYU up three with 4:13 to play in the first half. 
• BYU went on a 7-0 run leading up to the final minute of the first half as a Collinsworth steal and dunk and a Fischer 3-pointer and jumper gave BYU 49-44 lead with 1:00 left in half.
• The Cougars stretched their lead after the half to 12 points over first three minutes as BYU went on a 12-5 run and five different Cougars scored.
• The last time BYU scored 100 or more was against Chaminade in 2014.

Quotes

BYU head coach Dave Rose

“Obviously the ultimate goal is that we're trying to win every game. I'm really happy for our guys tonight. I think there are things from this game that can help us get better. Tonight, we weren't very good defensively on the point of attack. We need to improve on that. Offensively, we played well. We shot the ball really well. We'll get some good practices in next week before we hit the road for the next four games. That will tell us lot about where we're going to be and how the season's going to turn out. I'm proud of us tonight.”

Why so many points for USF tonight?

“Historically, San Francisco scores a lot of points. But they usually do it with 3-point shots. Tonight they only hit seven 3-pointers and scored 92 points, which means that there were a lot of free throws and layups that they were making. But, don't get me wrong, I'm proud of our guys for stepping up. Especially Jordan Chatman and Zac off of the bench.”

Is your defense getting better?

“We need to focus on the point of attack. That's the biggest thing. Watson for USF could get wherever he wanted on the floor. If you can get wherever you want, you're going to give up a shot or a pass to a wide-open guy. We were scrambling tonight and we're better than that. We'll see how the next four games go.”

Chase Fischer

Key to tonight's win?

“I think it was being tough. Going into halftime, we had a little lead but in the locker room it didn't feel like that. They had us back on the heels. In the second half, they made a lot of shots to keep them in the game. They're a really good offensive team. But, in the end, it showed a lot of toughness on our end to close it out.” 

What does the four-game winning streak say about BYU?

“Obviously, you want to have more 2-0 stretches than splits. It's really hard in conference play to go 2-0 during a week. Defending the home court gives us a lot of confidence, but we were on the road for two straight weeks before we came home for this home stretch. But, we played well at Hawaii and had a good win at Pacific, so we have a lot of confidence on the road.”

Zac Seljaas

What was working for you tonight?

“We were just running our plays really well. Coach designed them so their defense would step back and give me a chance to get open.”

Are you excited for Gonzaga on Thursday?

“I’m very excited. It's my first time up there. It sounds fun to me, because just like Chase, I like playing on the road. Going in and making the crowd mad because you're scoring more than them, there's nothing better. I feel like we can go in and play our game.” 

San Francisco head coach Rex Walters

“I thought we played about a C+ game, but that kind of game is not going to be good enough against a team like BYU on the road. I thought our guys battled and fought hard. We gave ourselves chances, but we missed some timely rebounds and they made some tough shots. We need to do a better job next time of limiting their open shots.”

“Playing against a team like BYU, you have to be there defending them when they catch the ball.”

“We missed some timely rebounds that they brought down. They do a really good job of seeing the ball come off the rim. They are a little older and more experienced than we are at pursuing the ball. I thought their pursuit of the ball was better than ours tonight, and those were the differing factors of tonight’s game.”

“We will learn a lot from this game. We are going to go home and watch the tape and show it to our guys and see what we can do to better compete at this level. The number of corrections we are making as the season goes on are getting smaller. Our margin of error is getting smaller, which is promising.”​