By Nicholas Goodfellow
BYU responded to its first road loss by beating the visiting San Diego State Aztecs 66-64 Monday night Feb. 17.
With the win, the Cougars improve to 7-2 in conference play, one game behind the University of Utah.
The Cougars lost just their second game in the MWC to the UNLV Rebels 61-54 Friday night.
Senior Travis Hansen led the Cougars with 19 points, three of which came with a minute and a half remaining that ended up being the game winner.
'They never went away,' coach Steve Cleveland said. 'If it hadn''t been for Travis''s huge three, who knows where we would have been.'
The Aztecs came out of the gate and outscored the Cougars 15-5 in the first six and a half minutes of the game.
SDSU''s run was led by senior Mike Mackell, who dominated the inside, scoring 6 of the Aztecs first 15 points, while in the process drawing some big fouls from Cougar center Rafael Araujo.
Araujo struggled again to find a rhythm in the game, as he was held scoreless in the first half and had just two points for the game.
'Right now he''s struggling,' Cleveland said. 'He knows it.'
Without their big man, the Cougars relied on strong bench play, and got it with a combination of juniors Jake Shoff and Ricky Bower.
Bower scored nine key first-half points and Shoff was huge on the defensive end for the Cougars.
'Ricky Bower did a nice job off the bench for us,' Cleveland said.
With six minutes to go in the half, the Cougars put together a 12-0 run that gave them a seven-point lead at 35-28.
The Aztecs countered with a 8-2 run of their own to get to within one with three seconds to go in the half, but Hansen took any momentum that SDSU might have gained by nailing a 3-pointer right before the half time buzzer, giving the Cougars a four-point halftime lead.
The Cougars came out on fire in the second half, as they outscored the Aztecs 13-5 in the first six and a half minutes. Two of those points came on a slam dunk by Hansen off a baseline drive.
After being down 14 points, the Aztecs made a run and got to within one point, at 63-62, with just over a minute and a half to go in the game.
'Everyone was trying to make individual plays,' junior Mark Bigelow said. 'I think when you do that, it hurts you.'
Then Hansen hit a three-point shot directly in front of the Cougar bench that sealed the game for BYU.
The Cougars are taking the next two days off as they prepare to take on in-state rival Utah next Monday in Salt Lake.