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PROVO — In the case of Houston men's basketball, defense also stays home.
Emanuel Sharp had 18 points, and No. 14 Houston scored 24 points off 15 turnovers to cruise past BYU, 86-55 Saturday afternoon at the 7,100-seat Fertitta Center in Houston, Texas.
Terrance Arceneaux added 15 points and six rebounds for Houston, which outrebounded BYU 37-24 with a 24-18 advantage in points in the paint.
"Turnovers and rebounding are what we keyed in on," BYU coach Kevin Young told BYU Radio after the game. "I'm more concerned about their offensive rebounding than I am about ours.
"There's no way to sugarcoat it," he added. "They kicked our butt in pretty much every way."
Trevin Knell had 12 points off the bench to lead BYU (10-3, 1-1 Big 12), including four of his team's eight 3-pointers that highlighted an otherwise woeful shooting performance from the visitors.
In meeting with the print media in Houston, Young praised Houston, particularly elaborating on a 3-point shooting effort that drained 16-of-34 on the game including 11-of-18 in the second half. But the first-year collegiate head coach added that Houston's offensive proliferation was buoyed by BYU's "bad defense" in his team's worst road loss of the season, b greater than an 83-64 defeat at Providence back on Dec. 3.
"It made it more of a rock fight than it needed to be," Young told media after the game.
Since dropping two out of three games in Las Vegas to end November, Houston (10-3, 2-0 Big 12) has held its opponents to 55 points or less during a six-game winning streak.
Houston held Richie Saunders — who exploded for a career-high 30 points in a 20-point win over Arizona State to open Big 12 play — scoreless from the field until Saunders scored on the break with 4:52 left in the half.
The junior from Wasatch Academy who finished with 9 points wasn't alone.
Nothing came easy for BYU, which shot just 36.4% in the first half and had more turnovers (10) than first-half made field goals (eight).
The host Cougars outrebounded the visitors who ranked second nationally in rebounding margin 20-12 before the break, including 10 offensive rebounds that contributed to 8 second-chance points to go along with 17 points off turnovers.
"It was just right of the gate; that's the thing for me that was frustrating," Young told BYU Radio. "A lot of the stuff that we tried to spend our prep time on, I don't think there was much carryover. I thought we would be a bit more decisive offensively, yet we were on our heels quite a bit."
Knell had 9 points on 3-of-5 3-point shooting at the break for BYU, which shot just 4-of-14 from deep en route to a 39-22 halftime deficit.
Houston outscored BYU 24-12 to open the second half, including a 12-2 run that stretched the lead to 29 on Arceneaux's 3-pointer with 11:41 remaining.
The hosts poured in 11 of their 16 3-pointers in the second half, shooting 53% after halftime to improve to 7-3 all-time against BYU with their 30th consecutive home victory.
"You have to tip your hat to their shooting," Young said. "Even that, though, the ones we gave up are not the normal ones we gave up. Our ball movement was poor; we held out, then we made the first pass out and held. When you do that against a long, athletic team, it's tough to score."
Dallin Hall had 7 points, and Egor Demin added 3 points, three rebounds and seven assists for BYU in his second game since returning from a knee injury suffered against Providence.
BYU is back home Tuesday to host Texas Tech (7 p.m. MT, ESPN+) in the Marriott Center. Then its back on the road again to face TCU next Saturday in the Big 12's familiar Tuesday-Saturday rotation in 2024-25.
"There's no better way to feel better about a loss than winning the next game," Young said. "Everyone will be extremely hungry for the next one, led by me."
