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

"We try and create mismatches and take advantage," Welch said. "Araujo is a great player, big and strong, but when we got him away from the basket, it opened up our offense."

The Falcons made 18 layups against the Cougars. In the first half, Air Force converted 10 layups, four of them by Welch.

"When we got our outside shots going, it opens up things for our back cut," Tim Keller said.

As good as the Falcon offense was against BYU, the Air Force defense was just as pesky.

Mark Bigelow scored 10 of his team-high 19 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half when he put the ball on the floor and drove at the Falcon defense. But 9:20 into the second half, no other Cougar had made a field goal.

The Falcons opened the game hitting their first six shots to take a 14-4 lead. When A.J. Kuhle and Tim Keller buried a pair of 3-pointers on the Cougars a few minutes later, the Falcons held a commanding 20-7 lead.

Welch, the 6-foot-8 center, used BYU's size advantage against the Cougars in the first half, drawing both Araujo and Garner Meads away from the basket and then driving on them for layins. Both Araujo and Meads committed five fouls between them before intermission.

Offensively, the Cougars could not get the ball consistently into Araujo, who was sandwiched by defenders. When he did get touches, he had the ball knocked away or missed shots he'd normally make.

"We could have done better there. He got the ball put it on the floor and lost the handle. They got good pressure on him," Cleveland said.

The Cougars used a brief run on a free throws by Bigelow and Mike Hall and a bucket by Luiz Lemes to cut Air Force's early lead to 23-16. But just as quick, the Falcons shifted from a 3-point attack and killed the Cougar defense on drives closing the half on a 19-0 run.

The final two plays of the first half were exclamation points by the Falcons. With the clock ticking down, Bigelow took a long pass and immediately ran into an AFA defender. In re-gaining his position, Bigelow had the ball taken out of his hands by a flashing Antoine Hood who dunked on the other end. Folks at the Academy said the resulting crowd noise was the loudest they'd ever absorbed.

Then, after Cougar freshman Mike Rose missed a bomb on the other end, AFA got loose for a final shot and it ended up being a layup by Hood on a two-foot handoff from Kuhle in the paint.

The 23-point AFA lead was the biggest by a Cougar foe since North Carolina State led by 14 at 48-34. The 19 points by BYU in the first half marked the lowest offensive output in six years when the Cougars managed just 15 at Auburn on Nov. 27, 1998.

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E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com