Analysis: No. 16 BYU hits rock bottom defensively in 99-92 road loss to unranked Oklahoma State

STILLWATER, Oklahoma — One specific aspect of No. 16 BYU’s 99-92 loss at Oklahoma State Wednesday night seemed to bother Kevin Young the most.

It was the first thing he brought up to reporters postgame, and it was something he came back to reference multiple times thereafter:

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Young’s Cougars had no answer for Oklahoma State down low, and the subsequent results proved eye-poppingly jarring.

“Our defense, it was terrible,” Young said bluntly. “They had 52 points in the paint. They scored at will. We couldn’t keep anyone in front of us, and it was just a layup fest. They had 52 points in the paint.”

Those 52 paint points from Oklahoma State — BYU was allowing just over 30 per game entering Wednesday — were the crown jewel of an overall 99-point outburst for the Cowboys, marking the most prolific scoring effort against the Cougars all season and resulting in a court-storming scene at Gallagher-Iba Arena to celebrate the upset victory.

Entering Wednesday, BYU had not lost to an unranked opponent in 22 previous tries dating back to last season. The Cougars had come to Stillwater in search of a bounce back win before heading into a particularly tough Big 12 stretch.

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Instead, Young’s team finds itself on a 3-game losing skid and in desperate need of defensive repair at arguably the most difficult point of the schedule to be starting from scratch momentum-wise.

“We’ve just got to get ourselves out of this hole,” BYU’s AJ Dybantsa said after the loss. “KY said in the team meeting after, it’s hard to go through adversity, but I mean, if we want to be the team that we want to be, we’ve got to dig ourselves out this.”

BYU stumbled out the gate, coughing up eight turnovers in the first eight minutes of play to trail by 15 points after nearly 15 minutes.

In all, the Cougars racked up 16 turnovers — 10 coming from Dybantsa and Rob Wright III — which led to 21 Oklahoma State points.

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“It was why we got into a hole,”…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/analysis-no-16-byu-hits-072406130.html

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Publish date : 2026-02-05 07:24:00

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