BYU basketball: Cougars outlast Gators in double overtime

"I thought maybe we got a little complacent, and thinking maybe Florida was going to roll over and we're just going to run away with the game," Emery said. "Once we figured they weren't going to die, we had to come back and find that desire again to win."

With BYU down 74-70 and struggling on offense, Jackson Emery, who was 1-of-6 at the time, stepped back and drilled a three from up top with 1:22 remaining to cut Florida's lead to one.

"He kind of backed off a little bit and it's so hard to get shots off over (6-foot-9 Chandler Parsons) but I jumped up and knew I had to stick it for the team," Emery said. "It felt good, and it looked good, and thank heavens it went in."

After Florida's Vernon Macklin hit 1-of-2 free throws, Fredette slipped through the paint to hit a left-handed banker with 26 seconds remaining to tie the game 75-75. The Gators worked for the final shot, and Parsons got a pretty good look but his 10-foot jumper from the right wing with two seconds left bounced back toward him.

"I felt like I had a good look and shot it," Parsons said. "I thought it was going down. It rode out. It happens. I'd like to have that shot again."

The Cougars were not out of the woods, however, and the Gators scored four straight to open the second overtime while the Cougars missed their first four shots. But Loyd came to the rescue once again and scored all of BYU's six points in the first overtime to keep Florida within sight.

It looked like the Cougars were going to get the final shot when Fredette grabbed a long rebound and headed down court, only to have the ball stolen away by Boynton near midcourt. But this time the Gators failed to get a good final look and a desperation tip by Macklin at the horn didn't come close.

"Those two plays they had that could have ended the game, I thought how we defended them right there showed our desire as a team to win the game," Emery said.

After dodging two bullets, BYU took control of the second overtime early when Loyd drilled a three from the left wing. The final dagger, however, was two long treys by Fredette - the second a towering bomb to beat the shot clock over the 6-foot-10 Macklin.

"No more one and done. We can start our own streak now with a different tradition," Emery said.

e-mail: jimr@desnews.com