BYU at San Francisco: Game Notes and Quotes

• Matt Carlino made his first 6 shots and went on to score 20 points in the first 8 minutes of the game. He hit 4 treys during the run and finished with 22 in the first half. The freshman set a career-high with 30 points on a career-best 13 of 19 shooting. He also had 4 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 assists.
• Carlino’s 30-point effort was the first 30-point game by a Cougar since Jimmer Fredette scored 32 in the 2011 NCAA tournament against Florida.
• Noah Hartsock scored 16 points on 7 of 13 shooting. It was his 26th game in double-figures this season. He added 2 rebounds, 2 blocks and 1 assist.
• Charles Abouo scored 15 points and went 3 of 6 from behind the arc. The senior also grabbed 6 boards and had 4 assists and 1 steal.

• Head coach Dave Rose went with a starting lineup of Matt Carlino, Anson Winder, Charles Abouo, Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies.
• BYU shot 57.1 percent (20 of 35) in the first half, including 6 of 10 from downtown. The team finished shooting 53.7 percent (36 of 67) for the game.
• The 49 points scored in first half were the most in the first half for the Cougars this year.
• With the victory, BYU earned its first win playing at San Francisco in program history. The Cougars had dropped the previous 4 contests.
• BYU secured no worse than a bye to the quarterfinals of the West Coast Conference tournament with the win.

• BYU made 8 of 9 shots to start the game and jumped out to an 18-9 lead with 15:53 remaining in the first half.
• Matt Carlino scored 20 points in the first 8 minutes of the game to push BYU’s lead to 30-19 as part of a 6-0 run.
• BYU led by as many as 11 and the Dons cut it back to 1 on occasion but the Cougars took a 49-44 into the locker room at the half.
• BYU continued its slick shooting, making 8 of 12 to start the second half, maintaining a 65-56 lead with 14:44 left on the clock.
• San Francisco cut the lead back to just 3 points with 4:43 remaining but BYU answered with 5-straight points to push the lead to 81-73 just over 1 minute later.
• The Dons took their first lead of the night with 47 seconds on the clock, hitting a short jumper to lead 84-83. Carlino took it back with a make under the basket with under 18.9 seconds on the clock. San Francisco had two open looks in the closing seconds but couldn’t capitalize as BYU held on for the victory.

BYU head coach Dave Rose

“I think both teams played really well. Tonight we watched players trying to figure out ways that they can help their team win. I thought both teams shared the ball well, shot the ball well and we made one more play. That's what it came down to.”

“[San Francisco] is a team that wants to score and is aggressive in scoring. An eight-point lead in some games is a nice little lead but against San Francisco it isn’t a very big lead. They have four guys on the floor that can shoot the ball from the perimeter and make threes. They have guys that can really drive it and they are always on attack.”

“They are going to shoot the ball early in the shot clock. When we got an 8, 9 and 10 point lead, you know there is still going to be a lot of possessions in the game.”

“My goodness, Matt Carlino to start the game . . . he got a lot of space and made shots. The basket started to look really big for him. At one time I think he was on pace to score 90 or something. That was good for him.”

“This was a really important game for us in the way that it played out. Going in to start the game it is important but when it got how it was going we lost the lead and had to come back and win. This team hasn’t done that yet.”

“We have been able to lose the lead in the second half and then get it back the hang on the last couple of minutes and win a big game. Inside of a minute and you lose the lead and you have to come back and make a basket and get a stop and win a game. Not only were we physically good night I thought mentally we were really tough.”