After a convincing win over Saint Mary's on Thursday, the Cougars just needed a win against the Pacific Tigers today in order to keep in the WCC race. However, BYU had a very weak night from the bench, poor shooting from the starting lineup, and were out-rebounded as a team. With this lethal combination the Cougars ended up losing a very winnable home game. The Cougars led at halftime by two and with 16 minutes remaining they led by seven. After that point they played fairly even and at around the 10 minute mark Pacific took over the game ,never relinquishing the lead.
After shooting hot from the line through most of the game, Kyle Collinsworth and Davis left a combined 5 points on the table by missing key free throws. To be fair, both teams had serious foul trouble which led to a free throw shooting display over the last several minutes. Chase Fischer single handedly kept BYU in the game by shooting 12/12 from the stripe over the waning minutes. Unable to get a stop, and forced to foul, the Tigers kept draining their foul shots to close out the game. The lone bright spot of the 77-72 loss is definitely Kyle Davis who provided 21 points and 5 rebounds. Coincidentally, Davis also had a great game in the loss in Portland, where Fischer, Collinsworth, and Emery struggled to put points on the board.
Are the Cougars out of the NCAA tournament? Right now they are, but they do have a looming game against Gonzaga at home that is now a must win game. If they lose any game up to that one (at USF, at Santa Clara, at San Diego, San Diego, Portland) then even a win against Gonzaga might not be enough. We've all been here before, the Cougars seem to be a perpetual bubble dweller, but they have done enough more often than not, let's just hope they can do it again.