Solid minutes by Miles

PROVO — While Trent Plaisted turned in an impressive 25-point performance in Saturday's 92-73 rout of Colorado State in BYU's conference-opener, the junior center extolled the effort of his backup, sophomore Chris Miles.

The 6-foot-11 Provo native saw significant action in place of Plaisted, who picked up two quick fouls in the first half. Miles ended up scoring five points and pulling down a season-high six rebounds in 18 minutes.

"Chris Miles did an amazing job when I got those two fouls early in the first half," Plaisted said. "He came in and we didn't miss a beat. That's what we need out of the guys coming off the bench — to come in and produce. That's exactly what he did."

Freshman forward Chris Collinsworth chipped in nine points to go along with nine rebounds.

Miles said BYU's success inside against CSU was by design.

"There's been a lot of emphasis recently on getting low-post touches. We've adjusted some of our stuff a little bit so it works better as people have scouted us and know what we like to do. There's been a lot of little tweaks in our offense to make sure that we get low-post touches and better shots for the guards outside."

Plaisted hit his first five shots in the first 12 minutes to help the Cougars build a 25-10 advantage over the Rams. Plaisted and Jonathan Tavernari combined to score 50 of BYU's 92 points.

Miles, a two-time 4A state MVP out of Timpview High, averaged 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.6 minutes per game as a freshman in 2004-05. Following that campaign, he left to serve an LDS mission to Portland, Ore.

Memories of his freshman season returned quickly as he played in his first conference game in three years. "The feelings of conference play do come back and it's exciting to see some of the guys you've played against before," Miles said.

The Cougars continue Mountain West Conference play Tuesday night at UNLV.

FREE THROW WOES: If there's one phase of the game the Cougars need to improve, it's free-throw shooting — particularly by the big men.

On Saturday, BYU made only 16 of 31 attempts (51.6 percent) from the free throw line. Plaisted was 3-for-7; Miles was 3-for-9; and Collinsworth was 3-for-7.

By contrast, CSU hit 18 of 21 free throw attempts (85.7 percent).