BYU vs. Santa Clara WCC Tournament Postgame Notes

PLAYER NOTES

Nick Emery hit 3 triples to give him 82 for the season, becoming the fifth Cougar to hit 80-plus 3s in a season. Emery also reached double figures for the 27th time as a freshman, second only to Danny Ainge at BYU. He hit 3-plus treys for the 17th time this season, tied for the 3rd most in a season.

Kyle Collinsworth played in his 135th career game, tying Brandon Davies for the fifth most at BYU. He also played in his 10th conference tournament game, tied with Jimmer Fredette, Jonathan Tavernari and Nathan Call for most in school history. With the win, Collinsworth has been a part of 100 BYU wins, tying Tyler Haws for 8th-most in program history.

Collinsworth scored 13 points for his 94th career game in double figures. It was also his eighth conference tournament game in double figures, tied for first all-time at BYU.

Chase Fischer hit a 3 for a 21st consecutive game. It is tied for the 3rd-longest streak in Cougar history. He finished with 14 points for his 26th game this season in double figures and 47th of his career.

Kyle Davis now has 46 blocks this season, tied for eighth most in single-season history at BYU. He finished with 11 points, seven rebounds, one block and one steal. He has scored in double figures 26 times this season.

Zac Seljaas scored 12 points, giving him double-figure scoring in 3 of the last 4 games and 10 total games this season.

TEAM NOTES

BYU started Kyle Collinsworth, Chase Fischer, Nick Emery, Kyle Davis and Corbin Kaufusi. BYU improved to 10-3 with that starting lineup.

The team improved to 10-0 when coming off a loss this season. BYU also moves to 4-1 in neutral site games in 2015-16. The Cougars WCC Tournament record moves to 6-4 and overall conference tournament record to 33-28.

The Cougars improved to 6-6 when scoring less than 80 points this season with 72 in the victory.

BYU had five players in double figures including Emery (15), Fischer (14), Collinsworth (13), Seljaas (12) and Davis (11)

The Cougars held Santa Clara to 33.3 percent shooting in the first half, 10.0 percent from 3 and forced nine turnovers. The Broncos finished the game shooting 36.2 percent for the game.

Santa Clara came back in the second half to make it a one-point game at 42-41 with under 14 minutes to go, but a 7-0 run from BYU kept the momentum in BYU's favor. The Cougars went 4 of 4 from the field in the closing minutes while the Broncos missed nine of their last 10 shots to seal the Cougar win.

BYU head coach Dave Rose

On the start:
“We got off to a good start and nice lead early in the game. They did a great job of changing their game plan from the last two times we played them. Nick hit some big shots to get us going early. I thought defensively for the first 10 minutes we were really, really good.”

On Santa Clara’s effort:
“There are two teams trying to win here. If there was only one team trying to win this would be a lot easier. These guys battled and fought. There was a possession where a ball was rolling out of bounds and I thought for sure it was going to be our ball and a Santa Clara guy dove in from about 10 feet away and just barely got his hand on it to slow it down and the second guy diving in got it. That’s the effort you are competing against. You have to have that. These are one game seasons and you have to win to be able to move on.”

On sharing the ball:
“Instead of us having one guy get 30 and a bunch of others get seven, eight or nine, we had five guys that shared that offensive responsibility. We had one guy with 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. That’s a pretty good hand.”

On finishing:
“I really believe that our execution late in this game on both ends, winning possessions on the offensive and defensive ends allowed us to win the game. We went for a four or five minute period where we couldn’t make a free throw. We’ve been in that position before and haven’t finished the game like we finished it today and that’s what makes me happy.”

BYU guard Zac Seljaas

Hitting the 3-pointer before half:
“It was just energy. We hit a shot right before that, got a stop and came back down and hit a three and then I hit that three. Then we went in to halftime. It was an energy boost to go into halftime.”

Coach Rose’s message at halftime:
“It was keep playing, keep going and keep attacking and see how much we could get this lead going.”

On tight game in the second half:
“It was very intense. We had to stay calm and stay patient on offense. We had to rely on what we had been doing all season and being able to play our game.”

File Attachments

wccm2.pdf