BYU is close to making winning a habit

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BYU guard Trevin Knell heads up court after draining a 3 during victory over Cincinnati Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, at the Marriott Center in Provo. | Nate Edwards, BYU Photo

Winning and losing can be habit-forming. The time it takes to replace bad habits with good ones is debatable, but if there is any truth to the Power of Three theory, the Cougars are on the cusp of better days.

Back-to-back victories against Colorado and Cincinnati have the Cougars (13-6, 4-4) sharpening their claws for Tuesday night’s showdown against Baylor (13-6, 5-3) at the Marriott Center (7 p.m., ESPN2). A third-straight victory will go a long way toward creating a habit of winning that is necessary to compete in the upper half of the Big 12.

Understandably, the Buffaloes (9-10, 0-8) and Bearcats (12-7, 2-6) are far from the conference standard and beating them convincingly might scream a false sense of security; however, the way BYU marched through both might shout more about the Cougars than it does about their opponents.

After a pair of tight first halves, where BYU led by two at Colorado and by eight against Cincinnati, the Cougars charged out of the locker room as men on a mission, delivering a flurry of defense, rebounding, shooting and ball control.

A layup by Egor Demin with 11:43 to play capped a 25-7 scoring run to put BYU up 63-43 in Boulder, en route to a 16-point win at Colorado for their first true-road victory of the season. The Cougars outrebounded the Buffaloes 27-24 and beat them 16-8 on assists.

Saturday night, Demin finished the first half with a 3-pointer and he and his teammates hit four more in the first 4:49 of the second half to build a 45-28 lead against Cincinnati. BYU also won the rebounding battle 34-28 and dominated the assists battle 18-11 in a 28-point win, their largest margin of victory in any Big 12 game.

To their credit, the Cougars have done in their last two games what they failed to do in four of the previous five – defend, rebound, pass, score and win. What…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/byu-close-making-winning-habit-205313577.html

Author : Deseret News

Publish date : 2025-01-27 20:53:00

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