AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Air Force bombed BYU almost at will Saturday in chasing the Cougars out of Clune Arena with a convincing 74-52 win before the largest crowd ever to witness a basketball game in that building.

The Falcons (13-2, 3-0) will face Utah on Monday while the Cougars (12-5, 2-2) head for Albuquerque today licking wounds.

The Falcons shot a blistering 72.5 percent. Neither BYU nor Air Force is shooting that well from the free-throw line with the clock stopped and opponents standing still. Scary.

"Credit Air Force," BYU coach Steve Cleveland said. "They beat us in every single category today and deserve the praise. We didn't play as well but even if we had, I'm not sure we would have beat them here today."

The 22-point loss was BYU's worst regular-season loss in Mountain West Conference history. The spirited crowd shouted "over-rated, over-rated" at the Cougars in the final minutes. One fan leaned over the rail and said: "You guys throw better blocks than your football team."

Another stat stood out: Air Force outscored the Cougars 36-8 in the paint.

Air Force coach Joe Scott, called it a "great win" and only "cemented" what people are starting to realize about his players and team.

"It was a huge win and I'm happy for our guys because they got a win over one of the best teams in the country," Scott said. "We did what we had to do. We came out and played physical. It was our building and we had to be more aggressive and we were and we needed to jump on them early."

Air Force did just that, making open 3-point shots.

"We made a mistake defensively by going under screens, which wasn't the game plan, and they got ahead," Cleveland said.

Falcon center Nick Welch made 9-of-10 shots, scoring a career-high 20 points. He had surpassed his all-time best of 15 points with more than eight minutes to play in the game. BYU had no answer for the shifty small center with 24-foot range and skills to put the ball on the floor and zip past the Cougars.

Air Force made 29-of-40 field goals to the Cougars' 16 of 37 for 43 percent. Air Force made 7-of-12 3-pointers.

Just like at BYU's embarrassing loss at North Carolina State, against a team that runs a back-cut oriented Princeton offense, the Cougars were "schooled," in Cleveland's words.

"It wasn't that we were lost out there, we were just a step slow and they took advantage of us," he said.

It was never more apparent than Welch's matchup with BYU's Rafael Araujo. Welch hit both 3-pointers he tried. He then set up at the top of the key and drove on the bigger Araujo for layups. His 90-percent shooting tied an AFA record.

"He causes us problems at center," Cleveland said.