BYU basketball: Cougars falters late against another ranked team

PROVO — The BYU Cougars have shown this season that they can play with the basketball big boys.

But despite their glossy 11-2 record, the Cougars haven't shown that they can beat the nation's best. In losing a tough back-and-forth battle Saturday night to No. 6 Wake Forest, 94-87, at the sold-out Marriott Center, the Cougars dropped their second game this season to a ranked team in basically the same fashion — blowing an 8-point second-half lead by failing to execute on both ends of the floor down the stretch.

"Once this team and this program starts making plays when it counts is when we'll win games," Cougar co-captain Lee Cummard said. "That was the difference tonight and in the Arizona State game. We didn't make plays down the stretch."

The Cougars had their worst shooting game of the season, connecting on only 40 percent of their shots, but only 33 percent in the second half. Even worse, they hit only 24 percent of their 3-point shots in the second half and missed their final nine attempts. Five of those misses came in the final two minutes after the Cougars tied the game 84-84. The Cougars made only four field goals over the final seven minutes, and missed four critical free throws in the final 10 minutes.

"In here (the Marriott Center), normally those shots go down. On the road we probably don't even have stretches like that," Cummard said.

Not having stretches like that is why BYU entered the game with a 53-game home winning streak. Now the nation's longest such streak is over. The Cougars did, however, give Wake Forest (13-0) its toughest test yet this season.

"I told the kids, 'That's not a good win, that's a great win.' Because we beat a very good basketball team," Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio said.

As tough as the loss was to take for BYU coach Dave Rose, he admitted that for 38 minutes the Cougars gave the Deacons all they could handle. Jimmer Fredette scored 23 points for BYU, followed by 18 from Jonathan Tavernari, 17 from Cummard, 13 from Jackson Emery and 10 from Charles Abouo off the bench. But again, having five scorers in double figures was not enough.

"I'm really proud of our guys," Rose said. "They played hard and they battled hard. We just came up a little bit short."

Deacon guard Jeff Teague killed BYU with a game-high 30 points, many of which came on driving baskets to the hoop. James Johnson added 22.

"Their speed and quickness is just off the charts and it was tough for us to get the ball stopped," Fredette said.