Point guard play will be big in Cougars’ Big 12 road trip to Cincinnati, West Virginia

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BYU guard Egor Demin drives against Cincinnati on Jan. 25, 2025 at the Marriott Center in Provo. | BYU Photo

Before the last seven minutes of Tuesday’s 85-74 Big 12 basketball loss to No. 20 Arizona, BYU’s offense was purring along nicely.

The Cougars were getting defensive stops, which led to some transition buckets, and point guards Egor Demin and Dallin Hall were getting to the hoop and/or distributing the ball to shooters on the wings. Hall’s driving layup with 7:46 remaining cut Arizona’s lead to 67-66, and the Marriott Center crowd of 17,274 was sensing one of those signature wins that could have defined coach Kevin Young’s first season in Provo.

Then the wheels fell off — at both ends of the floor.

“We lost because we just couldn’t get stops,” Young said.

Before that, BYU was getting some great play from its point guards, starter Egor Demin and backup Dallin Hall, who combined to score 27 points and register nine assists. Hall added four rebounds to his 11-point, six-assist performance, in 25 minutes.

“Dallin Hall actually put the team on his back for awhile there,” Young said on his coaches show Thursday night. “We need that. We need him to be aggressive. That’s something I have talked to him a lot about.”

Finding more freedom to get to the basket than he has all season, Demin got up 20 shots, making seven, and finished with 16 points.

“We like him being aggressive,” Young said after the game. “I thought he did a good job of getting downhill and getting to the rim. That is where he is at his best. Then you gotta stop him, and then his own spray-outs (passes) can happen.”

Demin, who has played with more confidence the past five games in which BYU went 4-1, said the message from the coaching staff was the same after what can be termed a lost opportunity against the red-hot Wildcats.

“Just keep stacking days and come back to the gym with the mentality of a winner, no matter what happened the previous game. So I mean, it was a good…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/point-guard-play-big-cougars-233302297.html

Author : Deseret News

Publish date : 2025-02-07 23:33:00

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