BYU vs. Pepperdine Notes & Quotes

BYU vs. Pepperdine Game Story

BYU vs. Pepperdine Box Score

Player Notes

• Kyle Collinsworth finished with a team-high 18 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block. His 6 free throws tied him with Kresimir Cosic for the 13th most in BYU history.  
• Nate Austin totaled a team-high 11 rebounds, 7 points and a steal. He also committed four fouls which passes Eric Nielsen for the fourth most career fouls at BYU. Austin and Collinsworth remain tied for the most career offensive rebounds as each pulled down 4 offensive boards.
• Chase Fischer scored 15 points, including 2 3-pointers and added 2 assists, a steal and a rebound.
• Nick Emery finished with 17 points including 4 of 8 from 3-point range. He added 3 rebounds and 2 steals. His four 3-pointers is the 11th time he has hit 3 or more 3-pointers which is the most by a freshman, four games more than teammate Zac Seljaas and Matt Carlino.
• Kyle Davis totaled 4 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks and a career-high 3 steals. It was the second 5x3 in BYU history.

Team Notes

• BYU is 9-8 all-time against Pepperdine and Rose is 7-4. The Cougars have lost three straight at Firestone Fieldhouse.
• BYU is 5-2 in January and is now 3-3 on the road in WCC play.
• The Cougars are now in fourth place in the WCC, tied in the loss column with third-place Pepperdine, one behind Gonzaga and two behind first-place Saint Mary’s.
• For the 10th straight game, BYU started Collinsworth (21 season/115 career), Fischer (21/54), Emery (16/16), Davis (21/21) and Austin 10/63). BYU is 7-3 with that starting five.
• After a 10-1 run by Pepperdine, BYU answered with a 7-0 run to take a 59-58 lead with four minutes left. The Cougars scored on a Collinsworth layup, Seljaas layup on an assist from Emery and a three-point play by Emery off a steal.

Quotes

BYU head coach Dave Rose

“We made some great plays and got them on their heels at times, but we weren’t consistent enough to actually get a lead. We got it back to where it was even and then they just kind of blitzed us.”

“They were good, they were good down the stretch. Murray is really a good player. He hurt us early and then he made shots late. The lineups we were forced to play to get some space offensively, there’s a real matchup issue and we tried to hide it in a zone and we got hit with some big shots. Their big guys really dominated us tonight.”

“The one thing about Pepperdine is, they don’t lose, you have to beat them. We got the game into a place where we could have handled this thing and we just weren’t good enough. (It was the same) things that have plagued us all year long in our road losses. We have had some bright moments on the road this year, but the last couple weeks the Saturday game has turned into where we don’t make enough plays late to pull it out and win it.”

“You drop games like this and it makes it really tough to win a championship.”

Nick Emery

“They outrebounded us. On the defensive end we couldn’t get rebounds. That just can’t happen and we’ve got to learn from it.”

Austin's play:

“He’s just a team guy. He battles and battles and battles in there. He gets up and keeps going. He brings a lot of energy to this team. He got some big boards there at the end and we couldn’t finish it out.

First half play:

“Our defense in the first half was really good. It’s just tough, you try and get into a rhythm and coming off Loyola we thought we had it going on offense. Pepperdine did a great job of finding us in transition and that just relates to the 28 points we scored (in the first half).”