BYU basketball: AFA makes it tough for BYU to tie

PROVO — Grabbing a share of a third-straight Mountain West Conference crown with a win over league-winless Air Force on Saturday night wasn't supposed to be so difficult.

Well, at least that's what most fans thought. The Cougars, however, said they knew it wasn't going to be easy to get that final but necessary win over a team that has played much better recently than its 0-16 conference record. The Falcons came to Provo after taking UNLV down to the wire in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

"We were playing for a lot here tonight and I think Air Force gave us everything that we thought they would give us," BYU coach Dave Rose said.

But by stealing, literally, a 54-49 victory over the Falcons in a packed Marriott Center, the Cougars survived a feisty Falcon effort to hoist another conference trophy - the third for Rose in his four years as BYU's head guy.

"Winning three championships in a row at BYU is few and far between I think. I mean it's been a long time," he said.

The Cougars (24-6, 12-4) finished atop the conference tied with Utah and New Mexico. The Cougars enter next week's MWC Tournament in Las Vegas with the No. 1 seed after San Diego State — a team BYU swept — beat UNLV late Saturday night. Utah has the No. 2 seed and the Lobos the No. 3 seed.

Despite making only two of their first 12 shots and shooting only 25 percent in the first half — a season low — and missing all 11 3-point shots in the first half, the Cougars still trailed by only three (25-22) at the intermission after Air Force's Andrew Henke drilled a 3-pointer right before the buzzer.

The main reason the Cougars stayed within striking distance was defense, specifically from defensive specialist Jackson Emery — who had three first-half steals and nine of BYU's 22 first-half points from those steals.

"He came up really, really big just to keep us in the game so we had a chance to make some plays late," Rose said.

But Emery wasn't done there. In the second half, mainly late in the game when the Cougars could not get on a consistent roll to put some distance between themselves and the Falcons, Emery added three more steals — with each resulting in points on the other end for BYU.

"Jackson made plays all night," Cougar co-captain Lee Cummard said. "He was all over the place. He carried us for quite a bit. He was consistent all night."