BYU basketball: Bruins hand Cougars first loss

The Cougars, however, came up empty on their next three possessions. A critical play came when Fredette was whistled for a charge, his fourth foul, on a feed to Davies for a dunk.

"I think it was a big turnaround ... I had to come out with four fouls and it would have been a two-point game again," Fredette said.

A follow-up tip by UCLA's 6-foot-10 305-pound freshman center Joshua Smith, a back-breaking three by Jones and two free throws by Smith had UCLA back ahead by eight and the Cougars back on their heels.

"UCLA had an answer for every run we made," Rose said.

The Cougars did cut UCLA's lead to 82-77 with 1:29 left on a twisting bank shot by Fredette, who finished with a game-high 25. But a monster dunk by Nelson over Davies, who fouled out on the highlight-reel play, ended any hope of a BYU comeback.

"It's never fun to lose, but the biggest thing is you have to learn from your losses," Emery said. "Losses expose things you need to get better on. So we're going to get better and learn from this because we're going to meet other big and physical teams down the road."

Rose was just as optimistic following the loss.

"I thought we played really hard and competed to the end. We just needed to make a few more plays," he said.

e-mail: jimr@desnews.com