BYU Cougars vs Air Force Falcons Basketball Recap

BYU 76, Air Force 66

Style points are the province of the Bowl Championship Series, especially in the Mountain West Conference. In basketball, however, posting wins is all a team needs to do to advance upward in the sport’s pecking order.

One of the Mountain West’s best programs is happy that it doesn’t need to impress beyond the realm of wins and losses. If beauty-pageant principles were involved, Saturday’s conference clash wouldn’t have reflected too favorably on the Brigham Young Cougars.

Yes, this wasn’t BYU’s finest hour, but the Cougars followed up their impressive road victory in Las Vegas three nights ago with a workmanlike performance against the Air Force Falcons at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah.  The Cougars were again led by All-American Jimmer Fredette, who scored 22 points despite an off-shooting afternoon.

The Cougars opened up a seven-point halftime lead, extended it to 13 early in the second, and ballooned it to 18 midway through the second half.  The Falcons, to their credit, never went away.  Using an interesting game plan, which called for clock management on offense to limit BYU in transition, Air Force held the Cougars to one of their lowest shooting percentages of the season.  Moreover, the Falcons never allowed the Cougars to use their sellout crowd and vaunted home court advantage to their liking. The home team didn’t establish a more frenzied pace, and the super blowout of 20 to 25 points – expected in some quarters before tip-off – never quite materialized.  

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Coach Jeff Reynolds’s Falcons were led by Michael Lyons and Mike Fitzgerald, who scored 14 and 13 points respectively. The out-gunned Air Force squad cut the BYU lead to as little as eight points with just under two minutes remaining but couldn't close the gap. Ultimately, the machinations of Reynolds from the visiting bench kept his team in the fight, but it couldn’t do anything more than that. AFA did push BYU several points under its league-leading scoring average. Brigham Young had been averaging close to 85 points per game entering this tilt, so it’s something of an accomplishment for the Academy to confine the Cougars to 76 points.

It just wasn’t enough, partly because Air Force – the Mountain West leader in free throw shooting percentage – missed seven foul shots and hit only 69.6 percent (16 of 23) from the charity stripe. That’s the kind of detail that gives coaches sleepless nights.

Though the Cougars shot poorly all evening and lacked the offensive flow they normally possess, head coach Dave Rose had to be pleased with the way they dominated the glass, out rebounding the Falcons 38-25, including 13 on the offensive glass.  The Cougars were able to find a way to win the contest despite playing below their potential.

They’ll gladly take this result. After all, this isn’t football.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer