BYU at Gonzaga Postgame Notes

BYU at Gonzaga Box Score

BYU at Gonzaga Game Recap

Player Notes

Eric Mika led all players in points and rebounds after the first half with 12 and six, respectively. He finished the game with 29 points and 11 rebounds. He also reached double figures for the 32nd-straight game, tied for the 10th longest streak in BYU history. Additionally, it was his 14th time reaching 20 points this year.

Mika moved up in the record books in this game. After his first trip to the charity stripe of the second half, he became the 49th player in BYU history to reach 1,000 career points, tied for the sixth fastest to do so with Tyler Haws. He also had a pair of blocks to get him to 61, tying him with Noah Hartsock for the fourth-most blocks in a season in BYU history.

TJ Haws hit three treys in the first half during the Cougars’ 14-3 run that put them within four of the Bulldogs. He finished the game with 17 points, including five 3-pointers.

Elijah Bryant scored the first bucket of the game for BYU after Gonzaga opened up on a 7-0 run. Fresh off of his career-high 39 points on Thursday at Portland, the sophomore guard scored 14 points. This was his 12th game scoring in double figures this season.

Nick Emery hit back-to-back threes to make it a one-point game, 60-59, with 10:21 to play. He passed Tyler Haws and Mike Rose for sixth all-time at BYU for career 3-pointers. He finished the game with nine points and four rebounds.

Team Notes

This was BYU’s first win over a No. 1 ranked team in program history. It is also the Cougars’ third-straight win in the Kennel, the Bulldogs ranked in each of those wins (No. 3/2 in 2015, No. 25/21 in 2016).

BYU held Gonzaga to 19 percent shooting from beyond the arc. That is the worst the Bulldogs have shot for three since March 27, 2015.

After starting the game down 18-2, BYU went on a 14-3 run to get within four, 26-22, with 6:54 on the clock. The Cougars got as close as a one-point deficit twice in the first half. In the matchup in Provo, the closest BYU ever got was a six-point deficit with less than two minutes to play in the game, 76-70.

At the break, the Cougars trailed 41-35. Despite being out-shot 59 percent to 48 percent, BYU was 5 for 10 from beyond the arc in the first half, while Gonzaga had just two treys. The Bulldogs had a slight rebound advantage at halftime, 18-17.

BYU made it a one-point game again with 10:21 to play after Emery made a pair of threes in a row. Then Mika hit a mid-range jumper to take a 61-60 lead with 8:37 on the clock, the team’s first advantage over Gonzaga in both games this season. After battling back and forth, another jumper from Mika at the 1:05 mark gave the Cougars the lead, which would hold.

Quotes

Head coach Dave Rose
These players will remember this for a long time. The first thing we talked about in the locker room at Portland was that there aren’t many times you get a chance to redo something special. We challenged Gonzaga at home, but we never really threatened to beat them. We got a chance to do it again knowing we could put pieces together to make runs on these guys and cause them some issues. We wanted to take advantage of that. The biggest point we talked about was that if we could get ahead of them in the last 10 minutes, everything would change. Gonzaga had never experienced that before. We just had to make plays after that. They were in a spot they hadn’t been before. Our guys gave a great effort and made a lot of plays.

On the slow start
Those first two timeouts were to keep our guys together and to believe. TJ made some big shots and Elijah made some key plays to keep us in it. Corbin helped us tonight, which was an awesome lift. It was a great team win. I’m just really happy for this young group to take advantage of this opportunity on a national stage. Tonight is a good way to end this regular season.

On Eric Mika
He puts so much pressure on himself and he is such a competitor. It seemed like he was really trying to force this, but this weekend he felt a lot freer. Coach (Terry) Nashif did a good job of putting him in positions where they had a hard time matching up with him.

On Corbin Kaufusi
The matchup is good for Corbin. It has been a tough go for Corbin because things have never really slowed down enough for us to work him in. He’s so different from Eric.

On beating the odds
It’s a good thing we don’t listen to what people think. You never know what is going to happen. Our guys really believed in each other and believed this could happen.

Conference tournament
It’s an interesting spot that we are in. We all know that we need the automatic qualifier to get into the NCAA tournament. LMU has been a team that has played us really tough. It will be a positive week to prepare for it, that’s for sure.

Sophomore forward Eric Mika
How did BYU pull off the upset?
It was a team effort. We know what we are capable of. We haven’t shown it all year, but we showed it tonight.

What was the difference between this game and the first game?
I think we just played hard and stuck together. We were in a similar position at home. We played hard and stuck together. We had to amp it up on both sides of the court and it payed off. Sophomore forward Eric Mika

How did BYU pull off the upset?
It was a team effort. We know what we are capable of. We haven’t shown it all year, but we showed it tonight.

What was the difference between this game and the first game?
I think we just played hard and stuck together. We were in a similar position at home. We played hard and stuck together. We had to amp it up on both sides of the court and it payed off.