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The West Virginia Mountaineers (8-14, 3-6) fell to the No. 22 BYU Cougars (16-5, 4-4) Saturday evening 86-73.
Opening Statement
Credit to BYU come in here focused, ready to execute their game plan. I think the glaring stat that I talked to the team about was the 19 second chance points that they got. It's a hard league. Anytime you can get easy buckets, fast break points, second chance points, and when you end up with 27 of them and especially as well as they're shooting the ball and a half court, it's going to be hard to overcome those three things, in particular. So, credit to BYU and coach Pope and their approach to the game today. I think without Khalifa, I think they did some different things against us that we probably weren't ready for but credit them and their approach to the game today.
BYU's three three-pointers from 6:02-4:45 of the second half
So, adversity hits, you're in a groove, you're on a roll, things are going your way and then a shot like that goes in, sure it's going to hit your confidence. So, there's a couple of those down the stretch that just were kind of demoralizing and it's hard to recover from.
BYU forward Fousseyni Traore career-high 24 points
Jesse’s not 100%, and when you're trying to stop a guy of that size, and you're allowed an armbar but your wrist is right there. And sure he's still trying to protect that wrist and there's still some pain there. It's not uncommon but it's still where we're at with it. And the whole question is whether you'd send a double or not more than anything you try to get him to catch off the block and do your work early. He was getting really deep position and Jesse was behind it and he gets a couple of bounces with his size and strength, He's going to get right under the rim, and so consequently did. Now the question is do we double or not? It's hard to double team like that. As well as they pass, they pass that thing right out there. And one more one more and there's another three-point shot. So, there's an adjustment we probably need to take a look at as a coaching staff whether we should have done or not and in this position, you second guessed everything and question it and you overanalyze it after the fact to figure out what you can do differently in terms of learning for the next game.
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