BYU Basketball: Cougars roll over Pepperdine

BYU had a bounceback game Thursday night as the Cougars blew out Pepperdine, 99-70.

The Waves came into Provo hoping to make some noise and put a scare into the BYU basketball team. For the first fifteen minutes of the game, they accomplished that. With five and a half minutes left in the first half, BYU only lead by six. Then the Cougars went on a huge run to end the half up by fourteen and BYU had clearly taking control of the game.

BYU was powered by strong games from their post players. Eric Mika lead the Cougars with 22 points and 10 rebounds. Yoeli Childs contributed 8 points and 14 rebounds, and even the bench guys were able to get some points with Jamaal Aytes scoring 6, Corbin Kaufusi scoring his first 5 points on the year, Braiden Shaw had 4, and Payton Dastrup also threw in 4 points.

Despite the big guys having their way, the guards also contributed. Nick Emery broke Jimmer Fredette’s record of 28 straight games with a made three pointer, en route to 10 points. TJ Haws and LJ Rose contributed 8 points each. But the guard who had the best game was Elijah Bryant, who showed the versatility of his game by hitting jumpers and posting up and grabbed15 points.

Pepperdine was lead by Lamond Murray Jr., who sliced and diced his way to 23 points. Utah transfer Chris Reyes had 15 points and 11 rebounds, but struggled with the size of BYU’s bigs, only shooting 6-18.

Pepperdine played well early, but were not able to stop Mika as BYU went to that well often to start their run. This lead to open three pointers and helped driving lanes open up for the Cougar guards. Ultimately, the short-handed Waves, who are missing two starting players due to injury, just did not have enough to hang with the Cougars for a whole game.

BYU now goes on the road to take on Pacific on Saturday.