BYU, Utah basketball: Cougars, Fredette hold off Utes

PROVO — Was it BYU's fast start or Jimmer Fredette's personal 12-4 run late in the game that carried the Cougars past the Utah Utes 82-69 Friday night at the Marriott Center?

It's kind of hard to determine which one of BYU's warheads was more lethal to the Utes. But combined both were powerful enough to give the Cougars the big rivalry win and keep them atop the Mountain West Conference standings with a 6-1 mark. Overall, the No. 10/12 Cougars are now 21-2. Utah drops to 10-11 overall, and 3-4 in the MWC.

"They don't count one and a half, and they don't count two, but they're big games," BYU coach Dave Rose said of the rivalry. "Most of our players have lived in the intermountain area for a long time. It's big to our former players who come to practice. You want to play your best, and tonight we played well."

The Cougars were really at their best in the opening half when they raced out to an 18-point lead 13 minutes into the game. And the Utes were at their best for the next 20 minutes when they cut that margin down to four with six minutes remaining.

But no one was as good as Fredette was during a three minute stretch late in the game when he went on a personal 12-4 run to spoil Utah's frantic comeback bid.

"They put a barrage on us in that first half, but we hung in there," Utah coach Jim Boylen said. "We took a few body blows and kept scrapping. We made that run and got the game under control, and I love the way we battle."

Fredette finished with a game-high 36 after going scoreless for the first eight minutes. But once BYU began leaning on the playmaking point guard's penetration and long-distance shooting, the shots Utah was firing at the Cougars began to glance off.

"He really played within himself late in the game when I know he was tired, because they had done a really good job on him. And that's something that is good to know," Rose said. "Because with what he's been through the past month or so (a bout with mononucleosis) he dug pretty deep tonight and found another gear and helped this team win."

From the beginning, however, it was BYU guards Jackson Emery and Tyler Haws who led the Cougars out of the starting gate. The two each scored eight of BYU's first 16 points, and the two also combined for six early steals.

"The reason why we got the lead was because we were aggressive," Fredette said. "We were going to the basket and getting good shots and putting pressure on them."