BYU Avoids Late Disaster, Upsets Creighton

After two brutal losses to South Dakota and UVU, BYU pulled the upset by the skin of their teeth in a 83-80 win over #21 Creighton Saturday night in Vegas with another game winner by Dallin Hall.

After going up 79-68 with 3:26 to go, Creighton went on a 12-0 after forcing 6 Cougar turnovers in the final minutes. BYU couldn’t break the Bluejays’ press and Creighton capitalized. With under 30 seconds to go, Dallin Hall took his own putback and hit the shot at the basket with 11 seconds left to put BYU up 81-80. He then grabbed the game-sealing rebound and hit two free throws with under a second left to seal the game.

Rudi Williams led the way for BYU off the bench with 26 points on 8-18 shooting from the floor and 9-11 from the foul line. Jaxson Robinson, Dallin Hall, and Fouss each chipped in 11 and Richie Saunders had 10 points off the bench. BYU shot 45% from the floor and just 29% from three, but a 50-29 rebounding margin was the difference, including 16 offensive rebounds.

Creighton was without leading scorer and reigning Big East DPOY Ryan Kalkbrenner due to illness, and the Bluejays missed his presence down low. Arthur Kaluma was unstoppable with 27 points, but the All-Big East performer fouled out with under 7 minutes to go.

BYU will need to learn how to break a full court press, but this team sorely needed this win heading into a big week. BYU hosts D2 Western Oregon Thursday before welcoming a much-improved Utah team into the Marriott Center next Saturday.