BYU basketball dismantled by No. 14 Houston on the road

The recipe to beat the No. 14 Houston Cougars is simple: do not turn the ball over and do not give up second-chance points.

However, doing that is extremely difficult, and BYU learned the hard way in an 86-55 loss on the road.

There is no sugarcoating what happened Saturday afternoon at the Fertitta Center: BYU got dominated from start to finish in its first Big 12 loss of the season.

The Cougars in red were the more connected and physical team the entire game, and the Cougars in blue were ill-prepared for what was coming their way for 40 minutes of basketball.

Houston guard Emanuel Sharp opened up the game with seven of Houston's first 12 points and led BYU 12-4 with 14:28 left in the first half.

Trevin Knell was BYU's lone bright spot in the first half and hit two of his three first-half 3s to get BYU back to within seven, down 19-12.

But BYU could not stop turning the ball over and giving up offensive rebounds. Houston took nine more shots than BYU in the first half due to their connectivity and incredible defensive effort.

Houston's pick-and-roll defense forced BYU to turn the ball over and take many difficult shots; even when it looked like BYU had an open lane, it would suddenly disappear because of how good Houston rotates on defense. BYU trailed 39-22 at halftime, their largest halftime deficit of the season.

The second half was more of the same. Houston led by as many as 34 points as they cruised to a win.

Houston finished the game with 24 points of turnovers and a plus-12 rebounding margin, including 18 second-chance points. The only thing out of character from Houston was how well they shot from the 3-point line. The Cougars in red shot 16 of 34 from 3, well above their season averages in makes and field goal percentage. BYU finished the game 8 of 24 from 3.

Sharp led all scorers with 18 points, Terrance Arceneaux scored 15 and Mylik Wilson added 12 points for Houston. Knell was BYU's lone player in double figures and scored all 12 points from the 3-point line.

BYU coach Kevin Young tried everything he could to get BYU back into the game, but nothing worked. He even tried playing Fousseyni Traore and Keba Keita on the floor at the same time, which flashed for a moment, but the issues that plagued BYU in the first half continued to bother them in the second half.

Houston's relentlessness and physicality had BYU shell-shocked. BYU was a 9.5-point underdog going into the game, so a loss was not unexpected. Still, the way Houston dismantled BYU is concerning for a BYU team that needs to put together a strong conference record to make the NCAA tournament in Young's first season at BYU.

BYU hosts Texas Tech Tuesday night.