By James Davis
After playing to a draw in the first two periods, the BYU men”s basketball team, led by senior forward Keena Young”s 27 points, picked up its first road win of the season in overtime against Weber State Saturday, 73-69.
“Keena right now in the low post is our best scorer,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “Tonight he was terrific. What I really liked as a coach was to watch our players going to him.”
Young”s 27 points were a career-best to go along with his 11 rebounds. The Wildcats had no answer to Young”s assortment of post moves as he hit 11-for-19 of his shots from the field and shot 5-for-7 from the free-throw line to get his second double-double of the year.
“It”s always tough to win on the road, so we stuck together as a team and we came out with the win,” Young said.
With BYU (4-2) up 70-67, Weber State”s Lithuanian forward Arturas Valeika faced up on Young and kissed a 10-foot jumper off the glass to cut the lead to one. Back down the court, BYU got a break when Rashaun Broadus was awarded a basket after a goaltending call on a baseline drive. The bucket gave the Cougars a 72-69 lead with just over 20 seconds remaining in the game. A free throw by Trent Plaisted and a steal by Lee Cummard made it final.
“Anytime you can come on the road and get a win is very good. It makes coach happy and makes the weekend a lot nicer,” Cummard said.
Although the Cougar defense held Wildcat star David Patton to just nine points and five rebounds, Weber State had three players score in double figures while shooting over 50 percent for the game. Tyler Billings led the Wildcats with 18 points on 6-for-7 shooting, Valeika had 15 and Juan Pablo Silveira added 12.
In a game that featured seven lead changes and 17 ties, the teams played it close with neither getting a lead of more than five points. After a Broadus miss with 2:54 to go in regulation, Dan Henry put the Wildcats up by one, 62-61. Next time down the court for the Cougars, Young was fouled and made one of two free-throws to tie the game.
“He”s a workhorse and he”s been playing great all year,” Cummard said. “Just give him the ball and let him go to work is what we try to do. I mean, the big guys struggle with him and the smaller guys he”s too strong for.”
A Weber State turnover gave BYU the ball and once again Young got the ball in the post. Three Wildcats converged on the Cougar before fouling him. Young”s two free throws gave BYU a two-point lead with 41 seconds to go. With 13.6 seconds left, Cummard fouled Silveira, who made both shots to tie the game at 64-all. Out of a timeout the Cougars set up their last play looking for Young, but time expired before he could put up a shot against Weber State”s pressure.
“Wow. It was rough the whole game,” Young said about playing in the post. “The first quarter we had a lot of close shots that we didn”t make and coach just told us at halftime to be patient and just go up strong and stop avoiding contact.”
The Cougars got on the board early in overtime when Cummard tipped a bad pass to himself for a steal and then sped down the court for a layup, getting fouled on the shot. After making his free throw, BYU held a 67-64 lead with 4:28 to go in overtime. Logging 32 minutes, Cummard chipped in 12 points while grabbing five boards.
Facing a double team all night, sophomore center Plaisted deferred to his hot-shooting teammate in the block for scoring but still collected key rebounds for the Cougars down the stretch. He scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds in 35 minutes
“Every team we play they try to take him out and they”re doing a pretty good job on him,” Cummard said. “You”ve got to be super good to be able to go against two guys and score all the time. I think he”s doing a great job of getting it out.”
With 1:19 to go in the first half, Plaisted grabbed a rebound off a Young missed layup and went up for the two-handed dunk in Weber State traffic. With two minutes to go in overtime and the game tied at 67, Plaisted pulled down a miss by Broadus and had it knocked out of bounds. On the inbounds, Young got the pass, worked around his defender and put up a baby hook shot while getting fouled. His free throw gave BYU a 70-67 lead with 1:50 to go.
BYU led 30-27 at halftime, but needed an 11-8 run to take the lead after the game was tied at 19-all midway through the first half. Young scored the Cougars” first six points of the game and scored nine of their first 13 in the second.
BYU returns home to the Marriott Center on Wednesday to face the Spartans of San Jose State before heading off on the road again.
