PROVO ā Big Monday was on the verge of becoming Arizona’s big blowout Monday night at the Marriott Center.
Then it was almost the Big Comeback.
In the end, Arizona was breathing a big sigh of relief.
Brayden Burries poured in a career-high 29 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals; and Jaden Bradley scored 26 with three assists and two steals as No. 1 Arizona remained unbeaten with a 86-83 win over No. 13 BYU.
Koa Peat added 10 points, three rebounds and two assists for the Wildcats (21-0, 8-0 Big 12), who outrebounded BYU 39-37 and shot 57.9% after the break to silence a sellout crowd of 18,239 just 48 hours after a rivalry win over Utah.
AJ Dybantsa had 24 points, four rebounds and five assists to lead the Cougars (17-3, 5-2 Big 12); and Richie Saunders added 18 points and eight rebounds.
Kennard Davis, Jr. had 17 points on 5-of-8 3-point shooting, his most points since scoring 17 in a 109-81 win over Eastern Washington on Dec. 22.
It would’ve been a nice moral victory in a blowout, but it led to something more ā a game where the 1.5-point Wildcats had to sweat out the final possession or so, with some form of gratitude from Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd after his team improved to a program-record 21 straight wins without a loss to open the season.
“Great environment. Super impressed with BYU’s team,” said Lloyd, the former Gonzaga assistant. “Coach (Kevin) Young’s a great coach doing a great job. We were fortunate enough to make one more play than them tonight ā and I’m looking forward to a couple of days off.”
After trailing by as much as 19 midway through the second half, BYU suddenly caught fire. Saunders hit his third triple to pull the Cougars within 7 points with 2:02 remaining.
Robert Wright III pulled up from three ā his first of the game, to go with four assists ā that cut the deficit to 7 again with 56 seconds left. Keba Keita cut into more on a cutback bucket on the Cougars’ next offensive possession, and Dybantsa converted two free throws following a flagrant-1 foul on a missed free throw with 37 seconds left to pull within 4.
Davis found Keita for an alley-oop with 21 seconds left, then put back a missed shot to bring the Cougars all the way back within 1. Dybantsa shot 6-of-24 from the field and just 1-of-8 from deep, while Wright was 3-of-15 from the field including 1-of-5 on 3-pointers to that point.
But with one chance to win it, there was no doubt who was going to take the final shot: a 50-50 split between the dynamic duo, one a five-star freshman projected to be an NBA draft lottery pick and the other a year removed from an All-Big 12 freshman team selection.
Young and his staff drew up a two-option play, and “they did a great job of taking the first option” away, he said, referring to Dybantsa.
“Rob got the ball within two feet of the basket, and felt pretty good about that,” he added. “Rob’s a gamer; we saw it at the Garden. I trust him in those moments. Quite frankly, neither one of them really had it going, but those are our guys. We’re going to ride-or-die with them.”
But Wright’s floater just before the buzzer was blocked from behind by Burries to help Arizona escape with a perfect record intact.
In addition to Davis, who connected on all six of his second-half attempts including five 3-pointers, BYU also got a boost from Aleksej Kostic, who canned back-to-back triples during 17-11 run that helped spark the comeback with 10 minutes remaining.
Davis’ 17 points are tied for his second-most of the year, behind only the 18 he had Nov. 27 in a 10-point win over Miami in Orlando.
“He’s had a rough go, but he’s a tough kid,” Young said of Davis. “And he stepped up and made plays.”
Arizona continues a two-game road trip Saturday at in-state rival Arizona State, while BYU heads to Kansas to face the No. 19 Jayhawks (2 p.m. MST, ESPN).
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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