Without Egor Demin, BYU blasts past Fresno State to improve to 7-2

For the first time this season, BYU basketball took the floor without Egor Demin in the lineup against the Fresno State Bulldogs, and the Cougars prevailed.

BYU defeated Fresno State 95-67 en route to its seventh win of the season to improve to 7-2.

BYU had six players score in double figures and shot 55.1% from the field and 41.2% from 3. Trevin Knell led the way for BYU, scoring 22 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to secure his first career double-double.

Richie Saunders was right behind Knell; he scored 17 points on 7 of 14 shooting. Keba Keita was perfect from the field and scored 12 points, grabbed eight rebounds and made his presence felt defensively with two blocks. Dallin Hall had his best game since returning from injury, scoring 13 points on 5-8 of shooting and dished out a team-high four assists.

Kanon Catchings added in 10 points of his own and played one of his better games in BYU uniform.

"I thought that was one of Kanon's best games and he was only 1 of 7 from 3," said coach Kevin Young.

Catchings was aggressive, driving to the basket early and was a driving force behind BYU's offensive success.

Every starter scored in double figures, and BYU received another lift off the bench from Dawson Baker, who has recently become one of BYU's most lethal scoring options off the bounce. His shot creativity and comfortability with the offense are coming together at the right time, as BYU only has two games left before conference play.

After a slow defensive start, BYU broke the game open with an 11-0 run and led by double digits for the rest of the game. Even without Demin, BYU still was humming on offense. Coming off the Providence loss, BYU had a lot that they needed to improve on, especially when it came to getting Hall and Demin more comfortable on the offense.

"I thought we actually ran some pretty good offense tonight that I thought helped [Hall] and put him in some better positions," said Young. "That was something that I had to, you know, look myself in the mirror pretty heavily."

Unfortunately for BYU, Demin will not be available in the near future.

"He's gonna be out for a week and a half," said Young. "We'll reevaluate; he's got a knee contusion."

BYU will have to continue to try to put the puzzle pieces together during conference play to get Demin and Hall on the same page. It will be a slow build for BYU, but eventually, for this team to reach its ceiling, they will need Hall and Demin to play together and play well together.

The Cougars' one real offensive flaw on the night was 17 turnovers. BYU wants to move the ball and play with pace, which puts the team at risk of turning the ball over. But the Cougars have to be more careful in with the ball. In Big 12 play, when every possession counts, the turnover margin can be the deciding difference between winning and losing.

On the defensive end, the Cougars also took steps in the right direction after their loss to Providence.

"I came in very adamant about what we want to get better at," said Young. We had two very, honestly, ugly practices, which is exactly what we needed, and we kind of put the flag in the ground on what we want to be about defensively."

The Cougars did give up some 3s, but overall they were more connected and did not experience the same mental lapses that have played them over the last few weeks of basketball.

Overall, BYU took a step in the right direction against Fresno State in another comfortable win.

Oh, and this guy was in attendance, repping his new school as well.