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PROVO, Utah – Matt Carlino came off the bench for 11 points and nine assists to help the BYU men’s basketball team overcome a second-half deficit and win 68-63 against San Francisco on Saturday. The win puts BYU (17-9, 9-4 WCC) in sole possession of second place in the West Coast Conference standings with five games left to play.
"It's a great team win," BYU basketball coach Dave Rose said. "All wins are really good, but when your guys play so hard, and everything came really difficult tonight – there was nothing easy. It had a whole different feel to the game than the last couple of games in the Marriott Center where we scored the ball well."
Carlino's 11 points all came in the second half and also added three steals in the win. Kyle Collinsworth finished the game with 19 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals, while Nate Austin crashed the boards with a career-high 16 to go along with four points and a block.
Eric Mika finished with a second straight double-double, 13 points and a career-high 13 rebounds, with Tyler Haws adding 19 points.
The Cougars got off to a 9-6 start with Mika scoring five of those points in four minutes. San Francisco (15-10, 8-5 WCC) grabbed a short-lived, one-point lead until Collinsworth answered with a layup, a dunk and a three-point play to give the Cougars a 16-12 lead with 11:40 left in the half.
Haws’ first field goal came at the 11:03 mark, which was followed by a Collinsworth 3-pointer to extend the lead to 21-14. The Dons tied the game at 27 a piece with 2:12 remaining, but the Cougars responded with an Austin block that led to a Haws bucket at the other end. With under a minute left, Haws completed a three-point play for a five-point lead and the Dons added a jumper to make it 32-29 at the break.
Collinsworth led all players at the half with 13 points, while Austin added 10 rebounds. Mika contributed eight points and eight rebounds with BYU outrebounding USF 29-13.
USF got off to a 4-0 start to take a 33-32 lead with Collinsworth answering with a fadeaway for a one-point lead. After the Dons extended their lead to 37-34, Carlino connected on two from beyond the arc to tie it at 43-43 with 13:40 remaining. After San Francisco jumped out to a five-point lead at 52-47, Carlino’s alley-oop on an inbounds play to Mika for the dunk and a Haws jumper cut BYU’s deficit to one at the 9:28 mark.
With under six minutes to play, Haws' trip to the charity stripe gave BYU a 57-55 lead, its first since the 17:50 mark of the second half. Austin drew a charge and had a putback dunk at the other end that was followed with a Haws floater for a six-point lead.
Carlino connected on his third 3-pointer after an offensive rebound and assist from Collinsworth to push the lead 65-60 with 2:37 remaining. Mika’s bucket made it a seven-point game with 2:02 to go but San Francisco hit a three to cut it back to four just 13 seconds later. A Carlino free-throw ended the scoring and the Cougars claimed the five-point win.
The Cougars grabbed 20 offensive rebounds for 16 second-chance points and outrebounded the Dons 47-29.
BYU will hit the road to play Pacific on Thursday at 8 p.m. PST. The game will be televised live on ROOT Sports and broadcast on the Cougar IMG Sports Network on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM.