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The BYU Cougars continued their offensive renaissance in a 96-62 defeat of the Santa Clara Broncos on Saturday afternoon at the Leavey Center. BYU (19-8, 10-4) was led by Nick Emery with 31 points on 13/21 from the field, excelling on his drives to the basket after hitting 10 three pointers on Thursday. Chase Fischer added an extremely efficient 22 points on 6/9 shooting, while Kyle Collinsworth was headed for a triple double before sitting out most of the second half blowout. He finished with 15 points on 7/9 shooting, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists in only 28 minutes. BYU also got key frontcourt contributions from Kyle Davis (10 points, 8 rebounds) and Corbin Kaufusi (9 points, 6 rebounds).
Santa Clara (9-17, 5-9) was led by Jared Brownridge and KJ Feagin with 16 and 14 points respectively. Brownridge was in foul trouble early in the game, and never really got into the flow of the game, finishing four points below his season average of 20 points per game. Sharpshooter Matt Hauser rounded out the Broncos double figure scorers with 10 points on 2/4 from beyond the arc.
The Cougars did not look to shoot outside shots very often in the early going, and were able to attack the basket with relative ease, as the Santa Clara defense provided little to no resistance. Those drives eventually opened up the outside shots for Fischer and Emery who combined for 6/12 from beyond the arc. BYU had built a 20 point lead late in the first half, and kept expanding the lead in the second half after a short burst from Santa Clara to start the half. The Cougars out-rebounded the Broncos 44-33, and those defensive rebounds allowed BYU to get the transition game going, which worked to perfection and resulted in a lot of easy layups.
It was great to see BYU not suffer a letdown on Saturday after a big win on Thursday, which has seemingly been their achilles heel for the entire conference season. The Cougars will return to action next week with a home-and-home against San Diego on Thursday and Saturday.