Cougs hold off San Diego St.

PROVO — It didn't take much detective work to figure out that BYU's 66-64 victory over San Diego State in basketball action Monday night was anything but an inside job.

Sure, the Cougars held off the Aztecs in a late-night Marriott Center affair to improve to 18-6 overall and 7-2 in the Mountain West Conference standings. And senior guard Travis Hansen provided plenty of highlight-film material against SDSU (12-10, 3-6).

But BYU did it the hard way — stumbling off to a poor six-minute start, ignoring power and high-percentage opportunities in the front court and then back to stumbling through an even poorer six-minute finish.

After the game, Cougar coach Steve Cleveland went "postal" — not in a fit of rage, as the slang phrase has come to mean, about a lack of execution. Rather, he was bemoaning a lack of post touches and post scoring — passes to bigger, taller inside players for chances nearer the basket than a barrage of perimeter jumpshots.

And the BYU players seemed to take note. "We just didn't go inside," said junior swingman Mark Bigelow. "I think everyone was trying to make individual plays." Added reserve guard Ricky Bower, "Coach was saying that we need to be a little more wise about taking those jumpers down the stretch and get the ball inside so we're getting fouled, so we're getting free throws and so we're getting the high-percentage shots."

BYU's big starting duo of 6-foot-11 Rafael Araujo and 6-foot-9 Jared Jensen totaled only eight field-goal attempts — but still combined for 63 percent efficiency as Jensen hit 4-of-5 and Araujo 1-of-3. One needs to only recall the first 50 seconds of the second half as the Cougars found Jensen open under the basket for back-to-back layins.

But down the late-game stretch, after BYU had squandered nearly all of a 14-point lead in the second half, the Cougars couldn't find Jensen when he was open on three different possessions, opting instead to misfire from longer distances.

Luckily, BYU benefited from Hansen, who logged a game-high 38 minutes, a game-high 19 points, a game-high eight rebounds and a shared team-high three assists — and held Tony Bland, who boasts SDSU's highest scoring average at 16 points — to just 7.

And while we're talking about highs, let's talk about those offensive highlights:

• A soaring tip-in of a teammate's errant 3-point attempt in the first half.

• A beat-the-buzzer 3-pointer that gave BYU a 40-36 lead at intermission.