BYU basketball: Cougars deliver Tulsa a rare loss at home

TULSA — Unless it's their own, the BYU Cougars don't take kindly to home winning streaks.

With Tuesday's 74-68 road victory against Tulsa, the Cougars snapped the Golden Hurricane's 18-game home win streak — which was the ninth-longest in the nation. The win also ended Tulsa's 24-game home-win streak against non-Conference USA teams.

Exactly how difficult is it to win at the Reynolds Center? Since it opened in 1998 the Hurricane is 126-36 and have only lost 13 times to non-conference teams in the 8,500-seat arena. Make that 14 non-conference losses now ... Prior to BYU's win Tuesday the last team to beat Tulsa at home was defending national champion Memphis, which knocked off the Hurricane early last season.

"Their will to win really cost us the game," Tulsa coach Doug Wojcik said of BYU's come-from-behind victory.

To the Cougars, more important than ending Tulsa's streak was improving their record to 11-1 on the season with two more home games remaining before Mountain West Conference play begins at Colorado State on Jan. 10. The first of those two final warm-up contests is Saturday when the Cougars host No. 6 Wake Forest. Tuesdays' win was also the Cougars' fourth victory this season away from the Marriott Center.

"It's a good win," Cougar senior forward Lee Cummard said. "I'm more happy that we won on the road (more than ending Tulsa's streak)."

The Cougars, playing for the first time in 10 days, overcame an 8-point first-half deficit by outscoring the Hurricane 43-33 in the second half. Cummard led all scorers with 26, with co-captain Jonathan Tavernari adding 20 and sophomore point guard Jimmer Fredette chipping in 13. Eleven of Fredette's points came during a second-half stretch in which BYU stole the game's momentum from Tulsa and silenced the Hurricane crowd.

"Their best three players really took over the game," Wojcik said.

Tulsa had two main strategies to stop BYU's high-scoring offense — defend the 3-point shot and play good transition defense. The Hurricane were outstanding at both, holding BYU to only four fast-break points and 3-of-12 shooting from 3-point range. But BYU's second-half hustle in getting rebounds and loose balls in key situations made up for the deficiency in those other two areas in which the Cougars normally dominate.

"I think we were just fortunate enough to make a few more plays at the end to win," BYU coach Dave Rose said, acknowledging that BYU's hustle plays in the second half were the deciding factors.