BYU basketball: Cougars fall short as UNLV moves on to MWC championship game
By Jim Rayburn , Deseret News
LAS VEGAS — Despite a late Jimmer Fredette-led run Friday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, the BYU Cougars have now lost eight straight games to UNLV in Las Vegas and were knocked out of the Mountain West Conference men's basketball tournament, dropping a down-to-the-wire battle to the Rebels 70-66.
"We played our hearts out tonight, and played well enough to win. It just didn't happen," BYU coach Dave Rose said.
The No. 14 Cougars (29-5) now have to wait until Sunday afternoon see where they'll play next week in the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels advance to face the San Diego State Aztecs tonight for the league's automatic invitation to the Big Dance.
"We've been beat a few times, but not very many," Rose said, alluding to BYU's expected lock status for an NCAA bid on Sunday.
Apparently, the basket at the Thomas & Mack looks bigger for the UNLV Rebels whenever BYU comes to town.
When the Rebels ran BYU out of the gym last month, they came out and hit nine of their first 11 shots from 3-point range and 12-of-23 for the game. In knocking BYU out of the MWC tournament on Friday, the Rebels came out blazing again by nailing 7-of-10 shots from deep in the opening half.
For the game, the Rebels hit 8-of-19 3-pointers. This comes from a team that is shooting under 33 percent from 3-point range on the season. And making shots was really the difference, as UNLV shot 56 percent from the field while BYU managed only 40 percent. Surprisingly, with numbers like that, BYU actually led 19-14 by drilling four of its first five long-range shots.
"We matched them and I think that was what was important," Rose said.
But when the Cougars missed seven of their next nine 3-point shots while the Rebels stayed hot, the tide turned in a hurry.
"We executed our game plan and did exactly what we wanted to do, we just came up a couple of points short," Rose said.
An 18-5 run put the Rebels up 32-24. The Cougars cut that lead down to two, but the Rebels still led 41-34 at the break on a Chase Stanback basket at horn.
Early in second half, UNLV pushed the lead to 11 on back-to-back hoops by Brice Massamba. But the Cougars, trailing 57-47 with eight minutes remaining, changed to a zone defense and tied the game 59-59 on a 12-2 run, with Fredette scoring eight of his game-high 30 in the stretch. The Cougars then took the lead for the first time in 20 minutes on Michael Loyd's twisting layup.
"They're always good, but they're especially good when they get out in transition, and that's what happened in that stretch right there," UNLV coach Lon Kruger said.
The Rebels, however, tied the game 61-61 on Stanback's jumper from left baseline. The Rebels then went back ahead for good with two free throws by Brice Massamba.
"When you breath a little life into them like that, they snag it as good as any team in the country," BYU's Jonathan Tavernari said.
Trailing by three with 30 seconds left, the Cougars failed to get off a good look from 3-point range and instead settled for tough running shot in the paint by Loyd that glanced off the rim. The Cougars were hoping to get an open shot for Fredette or Jackson Emery off of a ball screen up top, but the Rebels closed them down outside.
"They are really good defensively at taking you out of your stuff," Rose said.
With the Cougars forced to foul, Rebel guard Tre' Von Willis hit four free throws from there to seal it for UNLV.
"They just made shots at the end, made big plays, and we didn't," Fredette said.
NO HAWS: BYU freshman guard Tyler Haws suffered a hairline fracture of his left orbital bone when he took a hand to the face from TCU's Zvonko Buljan in Thursday night's quarterfinal game, and sat out Friday's semifinal game against UNLV. He is expected to return to action once the swelling goes down, possibly on Saturday.
NEW GUY IN THE MIDDLE: When freshman center Brandon Davies started Friday's game, it marked the first game this season that senior Chris Miles has not started at center for BYU.
FULL HOUSE: The attendance for Friday night's second semifinal game was 18,500, the first sell-out in the tournament's 11-year history.
A NEW THEFT KING? Cougar guard Jackson Emery went into Friday's game against UNLV with 87 steals for the season, a BYU record, and he added two against the Rebels. The MWC record for a season is 91, set by UNLV's Marcus Banks in 2002-03.
MOVING ON UP: Jimmer Fredette began Friday's contest 14th on BYU's all-time scoring list with 1,443 points, 59 points behind teammate Jonathan Tavernari who sits in the 12th spot with 1,502 career points.
e-mail: jimr@desnews.com