Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- BYU women's basketball lost 67-66 to Colorado, marking their fifth straight defeat.
- Nyamer Diew scored a season-high 22 points, leading Colorado to their first road win.
- BYU struggled with shooting, hitting only 27% from three-point range.
PROVO — BYU women's basketball brought an intensity on the boards and on defense to match Wednesday night against Colorado, something that third-year head coach Amber Whiting admitted was lacking in the weekend loss to in-state rival Utah.
But the shooting was missing.
Nyamer Diew had a season-high 22 points off the bench to help Colorado hold off BYU 67-66 and hand the Cougars a fifth consecutive loss Wednesday night in front of 2,020 fans at the Marriott Center.
Delaney Gibb had 19 points, seven rebounds and three assists to lead BYU (10-10, 1-8 Big 12), which shot just 37% from the field and 9-of-33 from 3-point range.
Emma Calvert added 13 points, 11 rebounds and four assists for the Cougars, and Kemery Congdon scored 13.
But the shooting wasn't consistent for BYU, which dropped to its worst losing skid under Whiting. At least, not from the home side.
Diew, on the other hand, found her shot on 8-of-11 shooting, including a pair of 3-pointers. The Iowa State graduate transfer averaged just 8.3 points per game prior to scoring in double figures for just the sixth time in 20 games as the Buffaloes collected their first road win of the year.
"She has had a great two weeks of practice: high energy, lots of talk," Colorado coach JR Payne said of Nyamer. "I think at this point, most players are hurting — whether a foot or a back or whatever — but her attitude has been awesome.
"She's playing like a fifth-year player whose college career is coming to an end. I'm really proud of her," added the former Southern Utah coach.
In the first game between the two Rocky Mountain foes since the opening round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament, BYU's Congdon and CU's Tabitha Betson exchanged 3-pointers in the final 90 seconds to lift the Buffaloes to a 2-point advantage with just a minute to play.
Amari Whiting's initial game-winning triple caromed off the rim with 30 seconds to go, but the sophomore point guard, who finished 7 points, seven rebounds, three assists and a steal, grabbed her own rebound to give her team another chance.
On that attempt, Calvert needed one more to fall. But Sara-Rose Smith grabbed the rushed rebound for Colorado and the Buffs held on in the Cougars' eighth conference setback.
"We had a lot of wide-open 3s; you could feel the momentum, that if they could just knock it down, the place was going to erupt," Whiting said. "It just wasn't a lot of our night; 27% from three is not good. We don't normally shoot like that, and we have to clean it up.
"But I think we did a lot of good things: we took care of offensive rebounds tonight, which was an eyesore last game; second-chance points, cut it in third. That's a good thing."
The Cougars started hot, leading by as much as 8-2 as Gibb scored 5 early points and BYU scored 6 points off five turnovers. But the hosts cooled off down the stretch of the first quarter, shooting just 33% from the field as Colorado used a 7-0 run to tie the game at 13-all after one.
Diew knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers with 2:28 left in the half to lift the Buffaloes to a 6-point lead as part of a 13-2 run to end the first half that kept the Cougars scoreless for most of the final 2:17 — until Calvert beat the buzzer on a drive to the rim at the buzzer that cut BYU's deficit to 36-27.
Colorado outscored the Cougars 22-18 in the paint and 20-5 off the bench, paced by Diew's 10 and Grace Oliver's 5 before the break.
Congdon paced an 11-2 charge out of the half that included three consecutive 3-pointers, cutting the Buffaloes' lead to just 40-38 with six minutes left in the third. Gibb tied the game at 40-all midway through the quarter, part of a 14-2 run in the second half led by an 8-3 rebounding advantage.
Colorado went more than five minutes in the third quarter without a bucket, shooting just 2-of-12 from the field 0-for-6 from the perimeter. But BYU was equally prone to such droughts, finishing the final 4:49 of the quarter without a field goal while trimming a 9-point deficit into a 47-45 disadvantage with 10 minutes to play.
The scoring drought continued for more three minutes to start the fourth quarter. But BYU never let the game get away, mostly through defense and a renewed focus on rebounding.
Hattie Ogden tied the game at 58-all with a 3-pointer with 5:13 remaining, setting the stage where neither team led by more than two through the closing minutes.
"We really stressed rebounding in practice; we gave up 18 offensive rebounds last game (in a loss to Utah), and that was unacceptable," said Whiting, whose team travels to Arizona State Saturday (6:30 p.m. MST, ESPN+). "Sometimes, I felt like the girls cared more about the offensive side and just wanted to go instead of secure (a rebound against Utah). Tonight, we did a much better job of that."
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