By W. Mitchell
Junior forward Keena Young?s? 16 points and 10 rebounds led the men?s BYU White team over the Blue team 69-61, and senior forward Ambrosia Anderson guided her Blue team to a 25-14 victory at the Cougar Tip-Off.
BYU fans saw a couple of spirited games and reason for optimism for the upcoming basketball season at the event, as seven of the 15 players who participated in the men?s scrimmage scored in double figures.
?I think for the most part it was exactly what our staff wanted to get out of tonight,? men?s head coach Dave Rose said. ?We saw a lot of good things out there that tend to make us think we are on the right track.?
A few of those good things Rose saw were freshmen. Freshmen guards?and Blue team teammates?Lee Cummard and Jackson Emery displayed their quickness and basketball savvy in their debuts as Cougars, as both players finished with 10 points, four rebounds and four assists. But the freshman who really stood out was six-foot-11-inch center Trent Plaisted, who looks to be an imposing inside presence on both sides of the ball for BYU. Plaisted, who red-shirted last season, scored 12 points hitting six of 11 shots, while pulling down seven rebounds to go along with two blocked shots for the White team.
?We need Trent to play a lot of minutes for us in the post,? Rose said. ?We?ve got three or four [big] guys, but Trent is one of the leaner big guys who can play a lot of minutes at a high speed because he runs well and puts a lot of pressure on the defense. When you get your post guy down there early it opens things up for your guards.?
Both the Blue and White teams came out with a lot of energy in a fast-paced first half that ended with the White team up by one point, 30-29. The White team quickly jumped out to a 49-39 lead in the second half. The Blue team was able to regroup going on a 10-5 run that cut the score to 54-49 with seven minutes to go. That was as close as it would get, as Young?s double-double and junior guard Sam Burgess? game-high 21 points proved to be too much for the Blue team to overcome.
?It was good tonight,? Burgess said. ?It was a one-point game after the first half, and that?s usually how it is in practice. It comes down to the last shot usually.?
The women?s team played a fifteen-minute scrimmage during halftime of the men?s scrimmage. Women?s head coach Jeff Judkins said it was good for his team to play a game in front of the fans.
?I think we saw that Ambrosia Anderson can be a really good player,? Judkins said. ?She has a way of really scoring. I think [sophomore center Lauren] Riley?s worked real hard in the off-season. We have a lot of strength inside this year.?
The women play their first preseason game Tuesday against Westminster College at the Marriott Center at 7 p.m. The men?s first preseason game is against University of Victoria at 7 p.m. Friday, also at the Marriott Center.
