- Richie Saunders scored a career-high 33 points in BYU's 90-82 loss.
- Kansas' Darryn Peterson led with 18 points as the Jayhawks maintained a lead.
- BYU coach praised Saunders' performance despite the team's consecutive losses.
LAWRENCE, Kan. — If Saturday afternoon's top-15 tilt between BYU's AJ Dybantsa and Kansas' Darryn Peterson was the start of a heavyweight bout, the first (and only guaranteed) round went to Peterson.
He had 18 points and three rebounds, and fellow freshman Bryson Tiller dropped a career-high 21 points with seven boards as the 14th-ranked Jayhawks led by 21 before holding off the No. 13 Cougars 90-82 at Phog Allen Fieldhouse.
Dybantsa had 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting for BYU (17-4, 5-3 Big 12), which was led by Richie Saunders' career-high 33 points and 10 rebounds.
Robert Wright III added 18 points and six assists for the Cougars, who trailed for all but 51 seconds of the game.
In a highly anticipated matchup of projected NBA draft lottery picks, Peterson had the upper hand early and often as his 20 minutes would allow and Kansas (15-6, 6-2 Big 12) earned itself a key — some might say, resume-enhancing — win on a home court that has been tough for most top teams to overcome.
Saunders may have helped his own draft stock, too.
"I thought Richie Saunders was the best player on the floor," BYU coach Kevin Young said. "If someone can find a tougher competitor in the country, I'm all ears. I thought he played unbelievable."
For BYU, chalk it up as another missed opportunity.
"That's the blessing and the curse of being in this league: it feels like every night, for the most part, is a night where you have an opportunity to get a big win," Young added. "We just try to focus on what's in front of us.
"We're a battle-tested group, and a couple of shots away from being able to have some of those. For me, that just gets more fire in the belly to get it right."
CAREER HIGH THIRTY-THREE
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The Jayhawks shot 64% from the field before the break.
BYU was the opposite, connecting on just 4-of-16 attempts from beyond the arc en route to a 53-33 halftime deficit.
That included one from Dybantsa, who was held scoreless from the field until dropping a triple with 7:22 left in the half and finishing with 7 points at the break.
"Most of our struggles in the first half have been execution-related; I didn't think that was the case tonight," Young said. "It's hard to overcome 9-of-12 from 3; you have to give Bryson a lot of credit. He hadn't made too many threes on the year, and we were going to make him prove it — which he did, and we adjusted. But it wasn't just him.
"I've examined it eight different ways to the moon and back, and at the end of the day, it's shot-making," he added. "We're shooting the ball much differently in the second half than we are in the first. That's something that you can't necessarily fix; it's more about just making sure you are executing. ... But the shot-making from them tonight was remarkable."
But if slow starts have become common for BYU in Young's second season, so has "second-half Saunders" — at least in games where the senior from Riverton by way of Wasatch Academy has excelled.
The same was true Saturday afternoon.
Saunders erupted for 24 second-half points, and the Cougars used a 44-29 run to pull within four with 1:27 remaining.
But BYU could get no closer in its first consecutive losing skid of the season.
The Cougars head to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to face Oklahoma State on Wednesday (7 p.m. MST, FS1).
