Cougars unload 'avalanche' of 3s in big routaway

PROVO — It figured to be another close, hard-fought Mountain West Conference game Saturday at the Marriott Center.

Instead, BYU buried New Mexico beneath an avalanche of 3-pointers early on and cruised to a dominating 83-66 victory. And it wasn't even that close — with eight minutes left in the game, the Cougars held a 34-point advantage.

With the win, BYU (15-5 overall, 4-1 in league play) moved into a first-place tie in the conference standings with UNLV, which knocked off San Diego State on the road earlier in the day.

After shooting poorly in three straight games, a couple of Cougar players vowed to break out of the team's collective slump this weekend — and they delivered. Before a season-high crowd of 19,932, BYU connected on 13-of-16 3-point attempts (81 percent), marking one of the best shooting performances from long distance in the program's history. The Cougars had hit only 11-of-56 3-pointers (19 percent) in their previous three games.

"If we shoot 80 percent from the 3-point line, nobody in the conference can beat us," said guard Lee Cummard, who scored a game-high 20 points, including three 3-pointers.

One Cougar who had been struggling mightily from behind the 3-point line, Jonathan Tavernari, was the catalyst behind BYU's 3-point resurgence. He finished with 19 points, including 5-of-6 from 3-point territory. "We believe that Jonathan has it in him every game," said BYU coach Dave Rose. "I think he believes that and the other players have confidence in him."

"Nobody in the league can break a game open faster than (Tavernari)," Cummard said.

Then there was Sam Burgess, who went 0-for-8 from the floor in Wednesday's win over San Diego State. Against UNM, Burgess was a perfect 3-for-3 from behind the arc and finished with 15 points.

The Cougars were nursing a 7-5 lead four minutes into the game when they went on a 23-8 run fueled by five 3-pointers — one by Burgess, two by Tavernari and two more by freshman Jimmer Fredette. Suddenly, BYU was up 30-13 at the 7:30 mark of the first half.

"I thought we did a good job of coming out and executing our defensive game plan early," Rose said. "Our concentration level in executing our game plan was excellent."

First-year UNM coach Steve Alford complimented the Cougars on their play. "Dave (Rose) has done a good job and has a great program," he said. "They played at a higher level and we had no answers for them.

"We're just not deep enough or big enough. They have big-time shooters. They haven't been shooting well recently, but today they shot well."

Long before tipoff, Cummard and teammate Ben Murdock watched the Utah-TCU game on TV and they noticed the Utes drilling a flurry of 3-pointers.

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