BYU shrugs off loss to Utah, gets career nights from stars to throttle Denver
Veterans Jaxson Robinson and Noah Waterman led the way Wednesday night as No. 18 BYU bounced back from last Saturday’s loss to Utah and walloped visiting Denver 90-74 in front of a decent weekday crowd of 13,349 at the Marriott Center.
“It was a great atmosphere tonight, especially after a tough loss last weekend. I feel like the team played pretty great. I felt like there were a couple lapses on the defensive end. We can definitely improve in a lot of ways, but overall I was super proud of the team.” — BYU guard Jaxson Robinson
But after the Cougars improved to 9-1 by making 12 of 37 3-point attempts, the big questions for coach Mark Pope were about a guy who watched everything transpire from the bench, two-time transfer Marcus Adams Jr.
In light of a West Virginia judge ruling Wednesday afternoon that multiple-time transfers such as Adams should be able to play immediately, granting a temporary restraining order (TRO) so a WVU player could get on the court for the next 14 days, will Adams be able to get on the court for the Cougars any time soon?
Pope was noncommittal, although he did acknowledge that Adams “was in full shootaround today for the first time” all season, having been sidelined from even practicing a lot due to a foot injury.
“So we will see,” Pope said. “We will know more here in the next days and weeks.”
Before that, Pope admitted that BYU will take it slow and cautiously and make sure everything is legitimate before putting the 6-foot-8 forward from Torrance, California, out on the court.
“Yeah, so we are trying to make sure it is all real. As you can imagine, sometimes communication between universities and the NCAA can be super complicated to get final, final, final stuff,” Pope said.
“And there are still some nuances to the ruling that we are trying to make sure on. We do tend to end up on the conservative side of making sure. … Let’s see how fast we can press forward, and let’s run.”
Up next for the Cougars is Georgia State on Saturday at the Marriott Center.
As for the game against a 6-4 Denver squad that pushed nationally ranked Colorado State to the limit last Saturday before falling by 10 at Moby Arena in Fort Collins, BYU showed no ill-effects from the Utah loss and took control from the opening tip.
The Cougars took a 45-25 halftime lead and coasted the last 20 minutes.
“It was a great atmosphere tonight, especially after a tough loss last weekend,” said Robinson. “I feel like the team played pretty great. I felt like there were a couple lapses on the defensive end. We can definitely improve in a lot of ways, but overall I was super proud of the team.”
Robinson scored a career-high 28 points, including an 8-of-15 effort from 3-point range. He became the eighth Cougar in school history to make eight or more 3-pointers in a game.
“We kinda got back to who we were in transition and rebounding. That’s kind of what we needed against Utah. That was a tough loss but we are kinda getting back to who we are,” Waterman said.
“Jaxs is a dangerous man. Dude is one of the best shooters in the country. Didn’t surprise me. He does it all the time in practice, but overall I think it was a great win.”
Waterman especially bounced back well after going 0 for 7 and being held scoreless in the 73-69 loss at Utah. The 6-foot-11 senior had his first career double-double in the first half alone — 10 points and 11 rebounds — and finished with 22 and 14.
“I was just focused on the team. I was just going to focus on the defensive end. I only had four rebounds against Utah, so that was just what I was thinking about, trying to get every rebound,” Waterman said.
“We did that well as a team, not just me. Everybody did a really good job with rebounding. That was my mindset.”
The Cougars won the rebounding battle 43-34 and held Denver to 33% shooting in the first half; the Pioneers heated up and shot 51% in the second half, as BYU’s defense waned.
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Denver’s Tommy Bruner entered the game as the third-leading scorer in the country with a 24.0 average, but was held to four points in the first half on 2-of-10 shooting.
He finished with 15 points, most of those against BYU’s reserves after Spencer Johnson and Robinson put the clamps on him in the first half.
“We didn’t give Spencer a lot of help and we didn’t give Jaxson a lot of help. We just said, ‘You gotta go guard him,’ and I think those guys did a great job,” Pope said.
“Clearly, he is an elite level scorer. He is really, really talented. I thought the tandem of those guys was unbelievable tonight, especially in the first half. It was really locked down.”
The Cougars put up 24 3-pointers in the first half, making eight, to take the big lead at the break.
Robinson scored 12 points in the first half after not entering the game until less than 14 minutes remained in the half. He and Waterman combined to go 6 of 12 from deep in the first half. The rest of the Cougars were 2 of 12 from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes.
Still, the intensity was nowhere close to what it was Saturday at Utah — for either team. Both had seven first-half turnovers, after BYU had eight the entire way against the Utes.
The Cougars did a better job taking care of the ball the first 15 minutes of the second half, but then play got ragged as substitutes took over and BYU finished with 12 turnovers.
It was a nice, feel-good night for Utahn Jaxon Brenchley, who led the Pioneers with a career-high 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting. Brenchley prepped at Mountain Crest and Ridgeline high schools in the Cache Valley before playing four seasons for Utah.
He had between 50 and 100 supporters in the stands, including the entire Ridgeline boys basketball team.
But this night belonged to Robinson, Waterman and the Cougars, who have three more nonconference tuneups left against GSU, Bellarmine and Wyoming before opening Big 12 play on Jan. 6.
“It wasn’t that we weren’t us in that Utah game,” Pope said. “It was just we had little stretches where we felt like we had to do something more than us, and we actually can trust us because us is pretty good.”
