by John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Foussyni Traore got an emergency start at center and responded with a season-high 24 points in leading 22nd-ranked BYU to an 86-73 victory over West Virginia Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum.
BYU’s regular starting center, Aly Khalifa, did not make the trip to Morgantown because of illness.
The Cougars overcame some cold first-half shooting to connect on 54.8% of their field goal attempts in the second half, including 8-of-19 from behind the arc.
West Virginia coach Josh Eilert points to BYU’s 19 second-chance points off nine offensive rebounds as a deciding factor in the game.
“They do a good enough job in the half court and to get those extra 3s were a killer,” he said. “When you combine second-chance and fastbreak scoring, that’s 27 points right there and those are easy buckets.”
After seeing its 17-point lead whittled down to six, 67-61, BYU got a Richie Saunders bank-shot 3 ahead of the shot clock to push the Cougars’ lead back to nine. Another 3 by Trevin Knell answered two RaeQuan Battle free throws to make it an eight-point lead.
More triples by Jaxson Robinson and Dallin Hall pushed the margin back to 14 with 1:27 remaining.
“Those were demoralizing shots and credit to them because they went in,” Eilert said.
Overall, BYU was 32 of 66 from the floor for 48.5% and 13 of 36 from 3 for 36.1%. The Cougars came into the game averaging more than 12 3-pointers per game.
“When you are making defensive miscues and you can’t rebound out of it that’s going to be a problem against a team like that,” Eilert said.
Spencer Johnson contributed 15 points and Robinson tallied 12 for the Cougars, now 16-5 overall and 4-4 in Big 12 play.
Traore, at 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds, was giving up five inches to West Virginia’s starting center Jesse Edwards and two inches to backup Patrick Suemnick, but it didn’t matter. Traore drew a couple of early fouls on Edwards to send him to the bench and then began working on the others.
He was 10 of 15 from the floor, 4 of 4 from the free throw line and grabbed nine rebounds.
“He just did an excellent job of backing us down,” Eilert explained. “To double or not to double, especially when he is surrounded by four shooters, that’s a hard decision. We just thought we had a decent matchup down there but credit to him. He came in here with an opportunity and, man, did he make the most of it.”
BYU assisted on 19 of its 32 field goals and turned the ball over just eight times.
West Virginia, which had its three-game home winning streak snapped, got a season-high 23 points from guard Kerr Kriisa, who made 8 of his 14 field goal attempts including half of his 10 3-point tries.
Edwards scored 16 on 7-of-9 shooting while Battle finished with 14.
Tonight’s loss drops West Virginia’s record to 8-14 overall and 3-6 in Big 12 play. Tonight’s paid attendance was announced at 11,753
