PROVO, Utah – Junior Brandon Davies scored a career-high 25 points and the BYU men’s basketball team cruised to a 73-52 victory in the season home-opener over visiting BYU-Hawaii, Tuesday night in the Marriott Center.
"I was really pleased with how we came out and started the game," head coach Dave Rose said. "I thought that defensively we were aggressive not only individually — each guy was playing with energy — but as a team I thought we helped pretty well."
With three minutes to play, Davies passed his previous career-high 24 points off a spin-move and basket to give him 25 points on the night. He led all players in points on 10-13 shooting from the field while also adding nine rebounds.
To watch video click here
BYU shot 49.1 percent from the field and Noah Hartsock helped Davies out with 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists, two blocks and two steals. The Cougars held BYU-Hawaii to just 30.9 percent shooting and 25 percent from behind the arc.
"We contested shots, we were active and that’s really pleasing to a staff," Rose said. "When you have a group of new guys and you wonder how they're going to respond. I really thought that the first 15 minutes of the game were very, very good for us. Hopefully we can build on that."
It took either team almost three minutes after the game started to get any points on the board but, with a bucket from Davies to kick off the scoring, BYU took control.
A Stephen Rogers block in the next possession kept momentum going and Davies finished on the other end with two more points.
Another four from Davies, two from Charles Abouo and a 3-pointer from Brock Zylstra put the Cougars up 13-0 early.
BYU-Hawaii’s Bracken Funk broke up the13-point run from the Cougars with a three pointer, only to see BYU go on another 9-0 run before another Seasider would score.
The Cougars continued the onslaught and took their largest lead of the half, 26 points, with just 48 seconds before the break after a 3-pointer from Damarcus Harrison.
Tsung-Hsien Chang led the charge for the Seasiders in the first half with a team-high five points and finished the game with 12, again, to lead his team.
Funk put BYU-Hawaii on the scoreboard first in the second half on a quick two points but Davies was quick to respond for the Cougars with a basket of his own.
Back-and-forth scoring highlighted the first 10 minutes of the second half but consecutive possessions for the Seasiders put five points on the board to cut the lead to 15. A 3-pointer from Rogers, however, silenced the Seasiders and BYU continued on a 4-0 run before the back-and-forth game continued.
BYU-Hawaii’s SeQuan Lawrence put the final two points on the board in the game with a minute to play. Lawrence’s points finished the Seasiders’ 21-point loss.
Up next for the men is another home game against Longwood on Friday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. MT as part of the 2011 Chicago Invitational Challenge and will be broadcast live on BYUtv.