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PROVO, Utah – Nineteen points from Chase Fischer and 18 from Tyler Haws led BYU to a 91-62 win over Arkansas-Little Rock Tuesday night at the Marriott Center.
A strong second half including a 19-3 run allowed the Cougars to win by almost 30.
"As we attacked better, I thought the flow of the game was much better," BYU head coach Dave Rose said. "(In the second half), we hit a couple shots and got the crowd involved."
Fischer led the Cougars with 19 points on 7 of 12 shooting, including 4 of 7 from behind the 3-point line. Haws added 18 points on 6 of 11 shooting while grabbing four rebounds and dishing out five assists. Nate Austin scored eight points and led the team with 11 rebounds while Kyle Collinsworth pulled down eight boards, scored five points and handed out six assists.
BYU (2-0, 0-0 WCC) shot 53.6 percent from the field and 35.0 percent from three, while outrebounding the Trojans 47-33. BYU picked it up on the defensive end holding Arkansas-Little Rock (1-1, 0-0 Sun Belt) to 34.4 percent shooting in the game.
Luke Worthington got the crowd on their feet when he caught the ball in the post, made a nice spin move and slammed the ball home. Roger Woods kept the Trojans in the game with five early points as the Cougars led 13-11 at the first media timeout.
After a run from the Trojans to get within one, Fischer caught a pass on the left wing and pump-faked to get his man in the air. He made the jumper and was fouled. He made the free throw putting the Cougars back up by four.
After a close game throughout the first half, the Cougars stepped up their defensive effort to close out the half and took a 37-28 lead at the break.
BYU’s defense stifled the Trojans as they held Arkansas-Little Rock to 26 percent shooting in the first half, while the Cougars shot at a 47 percent clip. The Trojans knocked down 10 of 12 free throws while the Cougars struggled from the charity stripe making just 7 of 14 attempts. The Cougars outrebounded the Trojans 24 to 18, while scoring 16 points in the paint compared to Arkansas-Little Rock’s two.
Fischer and Haws led all first-half scorers with nine points each. Worthington added seven first-half points, which tied his career high. Collinsworth added six assists and Nate Austin led the team with five rebounds in the half.
The Cougars came out hot to start the second half. After a steal on defense by Skyler Halford, he pushed the ball up the court and found Fischer for a 3-pointer. After another defensive stop, Haws found an opening in the left corner and buried a three of his own to put BYU up 45-31.
Haws brought down the house when he stole the ball on defense and took it coast-to-coast and finished with the two-handed slam to cap a 14-3 BYU run to push the score to 51-33.
Roger Woods hit 1 of 2 free throws to cap a 10-0 Trojan run to get the game back to single digits. Anson Winder didn’t let that last too long, after the made shot he knocked down a 3-pointer to push BYU’s lead back to 12 with 12:44 left to play.
BYU proved to be too much for the Trojans in the second half, outscoring them 54-34 in the final 20 minutes to seal the 29-point win.
"It was a good win for us," Rose said. "I look forward to the next 24 hours to see how our guys will respond."
The Cougars are back in action tomorrow night against Southern Virginia at the Marriott Center. Tipoff will be at 7 p.m. MST and the game will be televised live on BYUtv and broadcast on the Cougar IMG Sporst Network on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM.