Saunders, Traore pull BYU basketball past slow start for win over Vandals

PROVO — BYU basketball's fourth win of the season came straight out of rural Sanpete County.

Fousseyni Traore tallied a career-high 29 points and nine rebounds, and former Wasatch Academy teammate Richie Saunders added a career-best 26 points, three blocks and four steals as the Cougars pulled away from Idaho 95-71 Saturday afternoon at the Marriott Center.

Egor Demin scored 16 points with seven assists, three blocks and three steals for BYU (4-0), which overcame a sluggish first half to win by double digits.

Tyler Mrus led Idaho with 17 points, and All-Big Sky preseason selection Julius Mims had 14 points and six assists for the visiting Vandals (1-3).

"I thought it was good for our guys to have to go through a game that was closer than the score indicated," BYU head coach Kevin Young said. "I was happy with our execution down the stretch; I thought we ran some timely offense."

Idaho opened the game shooting 64% from the field and draining five of the Vandals' first six 3-point attempts to lead by as much as seven in the first half behind a balanced effort by Mims and Kristian Gonzalez.

Keba Keita capped a 5-0 spurt to lift BYU to a 33-30 advantage with five minutes left in the half, and Demin had 6 points, four assists, three blocks and three steals to help the Cougars to a 41-38 halftime edge.

But BYU shot just 5-of-17 from deep and 6-of-16 from the free-throw line before the break, led by 9 points each from Traore and Saunders, who also had two blocks and two steals.

Instead, Mims had 9 points and four rebounds before the break for an Idaho squad coming off a 23-point loss to Washington State and a 4-point setback to UC Davis.

The former Tigers teammates were just getting started, though.

"It's definitely (special)," Traore said of his relationship with Saunders, before adding: "He's my little brother."

At this point, a mildly blushing Saunders — who is more than a year Traore's senior — responded with a quip of his own: "Yeah, how old are you?"

Whether by chemistry or kinship, the duo were nearly unstoppable in the second half. Yes, that includes offensively, where Saunders and Traore combined for 55 points on 21-of-27 shooting with four 3-pointers and 9-of-10 free throws.

But more importantly was the defensive end, where they combined for four blocks, four steals and 11 defensive rebounds.

"That's where I try to hang my hat," said Saunders of the defensive end, giving credit to former BYU assistant Kahil Fennell, now the head coach at UTRGV. "Coach Fennell challenged me for my first two years of my career here (on defense), and spent hours with him doing that. Now with coaches here and specifically coach Jon (Linehan), that was the biggest focus."

It's also leading to some pivotal minutes for Saunders, who has played 26 minutes or more in three of the Cougars' first four games, all starts after coming off the bench in all but three of his first 68 games in two years prior.

"He's hard to keep off the floor for me," Young said of Saunders. "He's a guy who creates his own offense, creates his own energy, his defense turns into offense for me. He's one of our most important guys … and I thought he was incredible tonight."

Saunders didn't slow down in the second half, capping a 14-3 run with a vicious dunk to put the Cougars up 60-46 after just under six minutes of game time. The 6-foot-5 junior from Riverton by way of Wasatch Academy also had a 3-pointer, a smooth layup and found Kanon Catchings in transition during the run.

Traore took over down the stretch, catapulting the Cougars' lead to 74-57 with 7:04 remaining with a personal 7-0 run by the Mali big man from Wasatch Academy.

Traore didn't miss a shot until the 6:08 mark of the second half. He finished shooting 11-of-12 from the field and a perfect 7-of-7 from the free-throw line.

BYU is off next week before hosting Mississippi Valley State on Saturday, Nov. 23 at 7 p.m. MST before a three-game road trip beginning Nov. 28 against No. 25 Ole Miss in San Diego.

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