BYU Basketball defeats Colorado College in final exhibition contest

Zac Seljaas scored 19 points on six three pointers as the BYU Cougars dominated Colorado College for a 95-35 victory in their final exhibition game on Wednesday night at the Marriott Center. Yoeli Childs was quiet on offense, but still finished with a double-double of 11 points and 17 rebounds. T.J. Haws added 13 points, while Elijah Bryant contributed 12 points and 9 rebounds. Jahshire Hardnett provided a spark off the bench with 11 points on 4/5 shooting.

Colorado College opened up the game in a fairly soft 2-3 zone defense, but BYU missed their first five three point attempts before Haws, Seljaas, and Bryant finally broke the lid on the basket by knocking down four consecutive triples. The Cougars did not look for Childs to begin the game, as their first 11 shots all came outside of the paint, 10 of those coming from beyond the arc. While it was difficult to feed the ball into Childs to operate in single coverage early on, he was able to slam home an alley-oop on a precise diagonal lob pass from Hardnett.

Dalton Nixon had an excellent first half off the bench for BYU, starting with a beautiful touch pass to Payton Dastrup on a fast break, who was fouled on his layup attempt, knocking down both free throws. He then swished home a three pointer, and followed that up by converting a layup through contact in the paint on a nice high-low pass from Dastrup. Haws and Seljaas both knocked down three triples in the opening half, as BYU held a more than commanding 48-14 lead heading into the locker room.

Seljaas stayed hot to start the second half, hitting three more triples in the opening minutes, the last of which came on a nifty behind-the-back pass from Haws in transition. Bryant then made two great passes to help extend the Cougar lead to 70-18: an excellent throw-ahead pass in transition for a Kajon Brown dunk, followed by a lob pass to Childs on the pick and roll, leading to another alley-oop dunk. From that point on, the Cougars were able to cruise to a comfortable victory, with every player in uniform seeing significant playing time in the second half.

News and Notes

• Nick Emery sat out tonight’s game and will also miss Saturday’s season opener, as the NCAA continues to review his eligibility
• Braiden Shaw missed tonight’s game with an ankle injury, while Ryan Andrus remains out with a knee injury
• Yoeli Childs’ 17 rebounds were just seven short of Colorado College’s team total of 24 rebounds