BYU basketball: Cougars start slow, finish strong to blast Miners

PROVO — Despite playing in the Marriott Center for the first time in a month Thursday night, the BYU Cougars found themselves in unfamiliar territory for a scary first few minutes.

But after watching the UTEP Miners march out to an 11-1 lead and quiet the decent-sized holiday home crowd, the Cougars realized they had a fight on their hands and came to life.

Actually, the No. 23 Cougars did have all they could handle for the remainder of the first half, but they eventually pulled away in the second half and avoided the upset with what turned out to be a comfortable 89-68 win.

"We knew there were a lot of possessions left and that we couldn't give up our game plan," Cougar guard Jimmer Fredette said. "We had to play knowing there's not a 10-point to catch up with."

As is often the case in the Marriott Center, the Cougars used a big scoring run late in the first half to take the game's momentum back from UTEP. Trailing 17-6, the Cougars went on a 16-2 run and finished the half on a 33-9 scoring spurt.

Initially the Miners confused BYU by spreading the court and beating the Cougar defenders off the dribble. When their shots wouldn't fall, the Miners were there plenty of times early to clean up the debris.

Before BYU had even taken a shot, UTEP was ahead 6-0 on the strength of a rare 4-point play by Randy Culpepper. With the Cougars turning the ball over and shooting bricks for the first four minutes, the Miners built up an 11-1 lead.

Jackson Emery, who drilled six 3-pointers in the game and scored 23 points, made BYU's first basket with 15:50 on the clock. It still appeared the Miners were going to weather the storm and clung to a 17-6 lead.

The next 12 minutes, however, were all BYU's — and the burst came from long range with Fredette taking over. Fredette hit a 3-pointer, then Noah Hartsock hit a 3-pointer, and then after a basket by UTEP, Fredette sandwiched a breakaway dunk with two more 3-pointers.

With seven minutes left in the half, the Cougars were suddenly ahead 22-19.

"A lot of people don't know that I have that (dunk) in my arsenal, but I think it really ignited the crowd," Fredette said.

Minutes later, Emery hit another 3 to push the lead to 29-23. When Stephen Rogers sank five straight free throws, BYU's margin grew to eight. Another 3 by Emery and a steal and dunk by Brandon Davies, who had 15 points, to beat the halftime horn sent the Cougars into the locker room with a surprising 39-26 lead.