Texas two-loss: Red Raiders hand BYU consecutive losses after Houston mistep

PROVO — BYU's second straight game against Texas Tech in Big 12 regular-season play went the same way as each of the previous three in the series.

Elijah Hawkins poured in 22 points and Darrion Williams added 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists as the Red Raiders handed the Cougars a fourth straight loss in the series 72-67 in front of an announced crowd of 17,307 fans Tuesday night at the Marriott Center.

Chance McMillian had 16 points and eight rebounds for Texas Tech (11-3, 2-1 Big 12), which swept its Beehive State road trip three days after a 93-65 win over Utah.

Fousseyni Traore had 14 points and five rebounds to lead BYU (10-4, 1-2 Big 12), and Mawot Mag added 11 points, five rebounds and a steal off the bench for a team that shot 43.9% from the field but just 5-of-23 from 3-point range and 12-of-21 from the free-throw line.

Egor Demin had 12 points, six assists and four rebounds to lead the Cougars' starters in a second-straight loss to a team from Texas following Saturday's 86-55 blowout loss to No. 14 Houston.

"I thought we were tested a lot with our physicality," said BYU guard Dallin Hall, who had 6 points, three rebounds and an assist. "We've just got to stay poised to the finish line. I think there are just a couple of things we've got to clean up, and control the things that we can control."

Just a few days before booking the plane for the Beehive State road trip, Texas Tech played "one of the worst defensive games that I think I've ever been a part of" in an 87-83 home loss to UCF, head coach Grant McCasland said.

That prompted some soul searching before a 28-point win over the Runnin' Utes and one of the most intense pregame practices of the second-year coach's Red Raider tenure in Provo two days later.

"We usually don't practice in these kind of environments in between that hard, but I felt like our team needed to have an edge in the way we compete," McCasland said. "We don't have a ton of experience at the guard spots, specifically the point, or experienced defenders on our team. So we practiced really hard last night, and our guys embraced it.

"We kind of built as the game went on, and I thought we got more competitive as the game went on."

McCasland called BYU's home-court environment "one of the best in college basketball," and said his staff took the trip seriously in preparing for it as such in trying to snap the Cougars' 14-game home win streak.

"We had a lot of respect coming into it, and we knew we'd have to win the rebounding battle," he added. "They are the best defensive rebounding team in the country, and we had more offensive rebounds than they did. That was the fight we needed."

Texas Tech held BYU scoreless from 3-point range on their first seven attempts, until Dallin Hall broke the seal with 7:31 left in the half as part of a personal 6-0 spurt to go up 23-20.

BYU shot 46% from the field during a first half that featured seven ties and 10 lead changes — the latest on Trey Stewart's second made triple of the season that gave the Cougars a 34-32 lead at the break.

Hall had 6 points and three rebounds at the break, and Traore added 7 points and two boards off the bench for BYU.

Demin paced a 7-0 run midway through the second half with a pair of assists, most notably finding an open Dawson Baker at the left elbow before the former UC Irvine transfer heaved one for 3 to put the Cougars up, 49-45 with 11:26 remaining.

Demin took it to the rim with 8:20 left to give BYU a game-high lead of 5, 53-48. Hawkins and McMillian erased the deficit with back-to-back 3s just over a minute later, and the Red Raiders scored on six straight possessions to take a 63-58 lead into the final media timeout with 3:23 to go.

Richie Saunders went on a 4-0 spurt to cut the deficit to three with just under two minutes to play. But the Cougars could get no closer until Demin banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"Late-game defensive execution was bad. We wanted to get the ball out of Williams' hands, and we let him play one-on-one too much," BYU coach Kevin Young said. "He made us pay. ... We have not been in a lot of close games. We have to be able to learn from this quickly, and be able to fix things that we didn't do to close it out."

Texas Tech hosts No. 3 Iowa State on Saturday, when BYU travels back to Texas to face TCU in a game scheduled to tip off at 12 p.m. MST.

Related topics