BYU Takes Down St. Mary’s on Senior Night

The first half was rough for both teams but BYU’s offense woke up in the second half in a 65-51 win over St. Mary’s Saturday night in Provo on senior night.

BYU led 23-18 at halftime after some ugly offense from both teams. After some first half foul trouble, Alex Barcello and Brandon Averette were on the floor more in the second half and BYU’s offense looked completely different. Trevin Knell was BYU’s leading scorer with 15 points off the bench and Averette, Matt Haarms and Gideon George each scored 11 apiece. Haarms added 10 rebounds and 5 first half blocks.

BYU shot a paltry 23% in the first half but bounced back in the second half to finish 43.4% from the field. BYU continued its good three-point shooting with a 9-19 clip from deep. Trevin Knell went 4-5 from three and Gideon George had his second good outside shooting night in a row with a 3-4 performance.

BYU finishes the regular season with a 19-5 record and 10-3 in WCC play. BYU will be the 2 seed in the WCC tournament, meaning they get a double-bye all the way to the semifinals and will play Monday, March 8.

With the two wins this week BYU also has a shot to crack the AP Top 25. BYU was 6 spots out in the latest poll and had enough teams ahead of them lose where its a realistic possibility when Monday’s poll comes out.

In the meantime, BYU will have 8 days off until they head to Vegas looking to win their first conference tournament title since 2001.