Second-half rally lifts Houston past BYU, Dybantsa's historic Big 12 tournament

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — BYU superstar freshman AJ Dybantsa showed out for the third time in three days in Thursday's Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals.

Houston has one of those, too, though.

Kingston Flemings had 17 points, four rebounds and three assists; and Joseph Tugler added 12 points, eight rebounds and four assists as second-seeded Houston upended 10th-seeded BYU 73-66 at the T-Mobile Center on the banks of the Missouri river.

Emanuel Sharp added 13 points and four rebounds for Houston (26-6), which eliminated BYU from the conference tournament for the second straight year.

Dybantsa poured in 26 points, five rebounds and two assists to lead BYU (23-11). Teammate Robert Wright III added 15 points and four assists.

Dybantsa set a Big 12 Tournament scoring record with his three-day blitzkreig of 93 points to break Kevin Durant's record held since his freshman season at Texas in 2007.

"That's special," Dybantsa said. "Kevin Durant, obviously everybody knows he's my favorite player. That's one of the only record I broke this weekend, so it feels good to just break his records."

But after three games in three days, BYU started to slow down in the second half — while coach Kelvin Sampson's team looked like one taking advantage of the tournament's double-bye into the quarterfinals afforded a top-four team in the regular season.

"We knew that if you've got Dybantsa on your team, you're dangerous," Sampson said. "(BYU coach Kevin Young) does a great job of putting them in the right spots, does a good job of hunting match-ups.

"But I thought our defense the second half we sat in those gaps, we said if he's going to score, he's going to have to make 3s," he added. "Chris got back one time and he shot one over him. But he took 18 shots to score 26 points. I don't think we put him on the foul line the second half. I might be wrong; somebody correct me if I am. But that was the big thing: we were out of character in a lot of ways the first half. But these are the moments that the players want to play in."

Considered a special talent and potential No. 1 overall draft pick in June, Dybantsa was shot 7-of-18 from the field, 3-of-5 from 3-point range and 9-of-10 from the free-throw line while adding five rebounds and two assists in playing all 40 minutes.

That last point was a sticking point for Young, who quipped that his five-star freshman "should have had 40 again." Not one to speak of and blame officiating, the second-year BYU head coach made sure to compliment Sampson and give full credit to Houston's game plan for winning — and simply beating BYU, especially with a 37-30 rebounding advantage.

But …

"AJ should have shot 20 free throws, minimum in that game," Young said. "Rob Wright only shoots four free throws. Guy drives every time. And Sharp shoots 10 — and I'm not saying the officials were, like, oh, we're going to give Houston calls and not BYU. I'm not suggesting that in any form or fashion.

"I thought they flat out missed calls, bottom line," he added. "And that led to some turnovers, led to some frustration. And so that's disappointing. And, again, I think to your actual question of the turnovers, yeah, we just drove into a crowd too much."

Keba Keita pulled down 11 rebounds to go with 8 points in the paint, and Aleksej Kostic added three 3-pointers for 9 points, including a triple to cut a 9-point second-half deficit to just 64-61 with 1:59 remaining.

But Flemings responded with a 3 of his own just 32 seconds later, and Houston closed out its fifth win over BYU since the two joined the Big 12 Conference in 2023.

Dybantsa (16) and Wright (12) combined to score 28 of BYU's 41 points in the first half. But it was "the other guys" who helped pull the 10th-seeded Cougars in front down the stretch.

But "the other guys" showed up down the strech of the second half, when Kostic drained back-to-back 3-pointers to cap a 9-2 spurt — one led by Keita's block against All-Big 12 freshman Flemings — en route to a 41-37 lead at the break.

Still, Flemings wasn't done.

The freshman scored 5 points as Houston opened the second half on a 10-5 spurt, including a triple less than five minutes in to retake the lead 47-46.

Houston stretched the advantage to four by holding BYU without a field goal for more than three minutes, crowding Dybantsa in the paint and playing hard on the glass as Chris Cenac gave Houston a 59-55 lead with 7:42 left to play.

Flemings picked up his fourth foul a minute later, but BYU couldn't capitalize. Houston held its opponent to just 6-of-21 from the field in the second half, including 1-of-5 from 3-point range that included a miss by Davis before Chase McCarty immediately drilled a three on the other end and moved back up 64-58 with 3:14 to begin to pull away and send BYU back home to await Selection Sunday.

"Obviously, you want to win every game, and it's unfortunate we didn't pull out the win," said BYU guard Kennard Davis Jr. "But I feel like we had a great learning point today, and hopefully we can build off this game and the past few games leading to the tournament."

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