- UCF defeated No. 19 BYU 97-84, never trailing in the game.
- Themus Fulks and Jordan Burks led UCF with 24 points each.
- BYU coach Kevin Young expressed disappointment in the team's defensive performance.
PROVO — Unlike UCF's 2-point win over Utah three nights prior, nothing about Tuesday night's late tipoff against No. 19 BYU came down to the final seconds.
The Cougars just got beat — punked even, to borrow a word from BYU coach Kevin Young — while sending swaths of the 18,062 fans streaming to the exits barely 1.5 hours after the 9 p.m. MST tipoff on ESPN2.
Themus Fulks went for 24 points and 11 assists, and Jordan Burks had 24 points and six rebounds as UCF never trailed in a 97-84 win over BYU at the Marriott Center.
Jamichael Stillwell added 12 points, 12 rebounds and six assists for the Knights (20-7, 9-6 Big 12), the No. 46 team in the most recent NET rankings before winning its third-straight game.
AJ Dybantsa led BYU with 29 points and eight rebounds, and Robert Wright III had 20 points, seven assists and four rebounds for the Cougars (20-8, 8-7 Big 12).
Looking for a silver lining? BYU freshman Aleksej Kostic scored a season-high 14 points, and Tyler Mrus added 7 points, three rebounds and two assists.
Except maybe for briefly flirting with the largest second-half comeback in NCAA history when Dybantsa cut a 36-point deficit to 13 with 30 seconds left, there weren't many.
The Cougars' offense couldn't make up for a lackluster defense that allowed the most points since giving up 99 in a Feb. 4 loss to Oklahoma State and more than 85 for the sixth time in nine games.
What went wrong this time? Young was as flummoxed as the sold-out arena, offering a simple "I don't know" when asked about the defensive effort.
"We were sleep-walking out there, and it's hard to pinpoint. I didn't expect that in the slightest," he said. "I'm super disappointed in our guys, in myself, and our coaches. It was a night that was not good, all-around.
"Every breakdown you can possibly imagine," Young added. "But you have to give all the credit to Central Florida; they played a great basketball game. They were a way hungrier team, they punked us and they deserve all the credit."
The Knights didn't just shoot the lights out of the Marriott; they shared the ball, too, assisting on 25 of 36 made field goals. BYU had 11 assists on 29 buckets.
"I play with a lot of pros; just look at our starting lineup," said Fulks, who set a UCF single-season assist record with 185 through Tuesday. "They make life a lot easier for me."
A lot of pros that led to UCF coach Johnny Dawkins' first win over BYU in seven tries, including 0-4 at his current stop.
"I didn't know that. We treat every game like a championship game, so we try to do this to every team we play — not just this team," Burks said. "That's the approach that we take. I'm happy that we got it, but until midnight. Then it's over, and it's on to the next play."
UCF connected on nine of its first 11 shot attempts, and Carmelo Pacheco drained the Knights' ninth 3-pointer in the first 14 minutes of the game as the visitors jumped out to a 42-25 lead with 5:46 left in the first half.
Dybantsa had 10 points and two rebounds at halftime for BYU. But Fulks matched his average with 14 points and four assists before the break, including a 3-pointer with 54 seconds left that gave the Knights a 52-28 advantage.
Three nights after going for 14 points in 35 minutes of a 73-71 win at Utah, Burks added 11 points and four rebounds for UCF before the break — including three 3-pointers as the visitors shot 11-of-16 from deep.
The team that ranked 21st overall in KenPom with the No. 9 adjusted offensive efficiency looked more like one with the No. 42 adjusted defense as UCF opened the second half with five consecutive makes to stretch the lead to 64-28 before Wright made the Cougars' first field goal with 16:23 remaining.
BYU's starters never got back into it, allowing a team that shot 37% from 3-point range before Tuesday to go off for 56% from the field and 58% from deep.
The Cougars trailed by as much as 36 four minutes into the second half, but attempted to rally with starters Keba Keita and Kennard Davis Jr. largely on the bench.
Mrus hit a 3-pointer to cap a run of four straight makes, and Mihailo Boskovic's free throws pulled the Cougars within 85-65 with 4:04 left.
Mrus made it 72-87 with 2:57 remaining following a 7-0 spurt. But a porous defense couldn't keep up with two offenses that ranked inside KenPom's top 40.
BYU hits the road for a two-game trip to West Virginia and Cincinnati beginning Saturday (5:30 p.m. MST, FOX).
