BYU’s newfound ‘toughness’ will be tested by mighty Houston in Big 12 quarterfinal Thursday night

KANSAS CITY — BYU basketball coach Kevin Young freely admits it.

The Cougars have become a much tougher basketball team the past 11 days, for whatever reason.

In other words, the squad that forced 22 turnovers and out-rebounded West Virginia by five boards in Wednesday night’s 68-48 walloping of the Mountaineers doesn’t even resemble the group that fell 79-71 in Morgantown on Feb. 28.

Advertisement

“Just the toughness that we have found over the last 10 days has really been the difference,” Young said after AJ Dybantsa scored 27 points and Kennard “Moo” Davis added 20 in the Cougars’ Round of 16 win at the Big 12 tournament.

The Cougars (23-10) will need that toughness, and then some, if they hope to stay alive in the tournament after picking up two fairly easy wins as favorites. Young’s battered and bruised crew will take on No. 2 seed Houston (26-5), which is ranked No. 5 in the country, Thursday night at 5 p.m. MDT in an intriguing quarterfinal.

“We took it back to the basics (after the losses to UCF, WVU and Cincinnati) and we just dumbed it down with our defense, got a lot less coachy, and a lot more just ‘do it harder, longer, stronger, faster’ and kept it real simple,” Young said. “And our guys have really taken to that, led by these two (Davis and Dybantsa) tonight.”

Dybantsa, who has scored 67 points in two Big 12 tournament games, the most by a freshman in a two-game stretch in tournament history, said “just staying aggressive” has helped him recover from a couple of subpar outings, by his standards.

Advertisement

“Last time we were up in West Virginia, I think I was a little passive,” he said. “Then they started … sending me into double teams, and I was kind of rallied up and (committed) turnovers. So me just trying to stay aggressive and keep them on their toes (has worked).”

Houston Cougars head coach Kelvin Sampson looks on during the first half of an NCAA basketball game against BYU at the Marriott Center in Provo on…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/byu-newfound-toughness-tested-mighty-170000788.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-03-12 17:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.