BYU basketball's birthday bashing
PROVO — Dave Rose has coached a lot of basketball games on his birthday, but none have compared to the present he received Saturday night at the Marriott Center.
In fact, not many BYU basketball games in team history compare to this one Rose coached.
In BYU's 91-34 demolition of Eastern Washington in the second game of the HoopsTV Las Vegas Classic, the Cougars scored 33 straight points in the first half and led by an amazing 41 points at halftime.
Both the 33-0 run and 41-point halftime lead are the largest at BYU since Rose took over the Cougars five seasons ago.
It's safe to say that the icing was on this cake early.
"I've coached a lot of games on my birthday, but I think this might have been the best one," the 52-year-old Cougar coach said. "We were good tonight. I mean, it was just one of those games."
Jimmer Fredette scored 20 and dished out six assists. Jackson Emery scored 15, grabbed seven rebounds, dished out four assists and had three steals. Freshman Tyler Haws scored 14, pulled down seven boards and added three steals. Fellow freshman Brandon Davies had a career-high 12 points off the bench and made all five shots.
Ironically, one of the night's biggest cheers came when Eagles guard Jeffrey Forbes sank a free throw with 8:49 left in the first half that ended BYU's 33-0 run and made it a 33-3 game. Eastern Washington scored the first basket of the game before missing its next 15 attempts.
The crowd's reaction surely poured a little salt in the huge wound that was opened with Eastern Washington's ice-cold shooting (24 percent in the first half) and BYU's blistering first-half performance. In taking that 55-14 lead into the locker room, the Cougars finished the first half shooting 69 percent from the floor and 63 percent from 3-point range.
"It was just one of those nights offensively that when we had a clean look we were dialed in and hit them, and then we got some space and just got better as the half went on," Rose said.
The Cougars had few empty possessions in the first 20 minutes. Of the 10 first-half shots that they did miss, they rebounded and scored on the second chance six times.
As good as BYU's offense was, the defense might have been better. At the break the Cougars had seven steals, three blocks and forced the Eagles into nine turnovers. They scored 11 points off those turnovers. The Cougars also outrebounded the Eagles 24-7 in the first half, and 45-17 for the game.
"This is a team (Eastern Washington) that scores 75 or 76 points a game, but we just did a really good job of taking them out of where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do," Rose said.
