BYU at Portland Postgame Notes and Quotes

Player Notes

Kyle Davis scored 13 points in the first half to set a new season high. He finished with 20 points. Davis has scored in double figures in 18 of 19 games played this year. He also hit his first 3-pointer since Weber State during the first half on just his third attempt since facing the Wildcats. He is 5 of 9 from downtown this season.

Nick Emery passed Mark Bigelow with two 3s for most made 3-pointers by a BYU freshman with 45. The makes give him a triple in 16 consecutive games played, the 9th longest streak in BYU history.

Emery scored 13 points for his 15th career game in double figures. He also recorded 3 steals to tie a career best.

Nate Austin picked up 6 offensive rebounds to pass Ken Roberts for the most career offensive rebounds at BYU with 269. He also tied Brandon Davies for 4th in career games played with 135. Austin finished with 7 points and 11 rebounds, his 16th career game with double-digit rebounds and third this season.

Kyle Collinsworth moved in to a tie for 11th with 113 career starts at BYU and also picked up his 29th career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. He also had 6 assists and 2 steals.

Chase Fischer scored 22 points, his 11th 20-point game this season and 17th of his career. He hit 3 3-pointers, tying him for 6th with Tyler Haws with 162 career made 3-pointers.

Team Notes

Head coach Dave Rose started Kyle Collinsworth, Nick Emery, Chase Fischer, Kyle Davis and Nate Austin for the eighth straight game. BYU drops to 6-2 with that lineup.

After going 0 of 12 from 3 to start the game against Gonzaga, BYU made its first 2 against the Pilots. BYU made 4 straight including the final two treys against the Zags and the opening 2 against Portland.

BYU had 10 turnovers in the first half but only four in the second half.

The Cougars dropped to 2-6 this season when trailing at half after going into halftime down 42-40 to Portland.

BYU regained its first lead of the game since the 17:53 mark in the first half up 5-4 when Collinsworth scored on a layup with 11:10 remaining in the game to make it 55-54. From that point there were six lead changes until the final score.

Quotes

Nate Austin:

"I think in the end, Portland just beat us. I think they came out physical and they had more physicality early on. I like the way we responded but they made one or two more shots than we did and came out on top. You have to give credit to Portland though. They played well with good pace and shot well and they defended us well. It was a fun game though."

"We have to be more consistent. Coach Rose tells us that when things are good, we have to be good. I think that’s what we’re struggling with right now. We go on a two or three game winning streak and we start to feel good about ourselves. We kind of lose that chip on our shoulder when things are going well. Tonight, early on, Portland punched us in the mouth. I think we were surprised with how physical they were and how well they were playing. But, Coach is right. We have to be good when we’re good."

"I think we had a really good opportunity to come in and make something happen. After we lost today, the Gonzaga win is kind of nullified by our loss tonight and coming here and not getting it done. We were exactly where we wanted to be in the conference and we let the opportunity slip through our hands tonight. We still control our own destiny, which is good. We have a harder battle from here though.

Coach Rose:

"Portland played really well, and hit some really big shots in the second half after we had established a lead. It was a great crowd in a great gym though. A lot of BYU fans showed up. We were a couple of plays short in getting the win. I think our guys had a pretty good idea of how Portland was going to come out and they would be determined to come out and play hard after a tough loss on Thursday. We out rebounded them, which is a stat that we usually see when we win. Between their three guards, they hit nine 3-point shots. They’re good at what we do. We had the game in a place where we could win; we just needed to execute more down the stretch."

"A lot of that is that he’s (Kyle Collinsworth) a competitor and he wants to win, but it’s a team game and the team gets the win. You have to have a lot of guys to rely on. I think that when things don’t go the way that we want them to or we aren’t playing the way that we want to, Kyle will take that on himself. He's a leader that way."

"They hit some big shots when they needed to, but those are the times that you really need to come up big with stops. Kyle got a great steal and Chase hit a big 3-pointer that gave us momentum, but the bottom line is that it’s hard to go on the road. We need to do better defensively, but also we shot 38 percent from the floor. If you’re missing six or seven shots out of the 10 you take, it’s going to be a long night. Our guys battled it out tonight, especially on the glass, but it wasn’t enough to get the win today."