BYU vs. Mississippi Valley State Game Story
BYU vs. Mississippi Valley State Box Score
PLAYER NOTES
Elijah Bryant set a BYU record for field goal percentage in a season opener at 10 of 11 (.909 percent). The last record was Mike Gardner at Oregon in 1962 who shot 11 of 13 (.846 percent).
Yoeli Childs recorded his sixth career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Childs also recorded a new career high of five blocks and six assists.
Childs finished with a 4x5 (at least four of five different statistics): 13 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and five blocks. It's the 17th 4x5 in BYU history. The last 4x5 was by Kyle Collinsworth on 3/29/16 vs. Valparaiso in the NIT
Zac Seljaas has now hit a 3-pointer in 11-straight games, including the last 10 of his freshman year.
TJ Haws made a 3-pointer in BYU's last 16 games in 2016-17. With a trey in the first half tonight, he has extended that streak to a career-best 17 games.
TEAM NOTES
BYU more than doubled Mississippi Valley State’s point total in the first half (47-23). The last time the Cougars had double or more than double their opponent's score at the half was Feb. 20, 2016, vs. San Diego (39-11)
BYU had double-figure blocks (11) for the first time since Jan. 6, 2007 when the Cougars had 11 vs. San Diego State.
The Cougars had 11 total blocks in the game, after averaging 4.6 blocks per game in the 2016 season.
QUOTES
Elijah Bryant
On defense
“I think it’s just defense. He says lock in on defense because that’s what gets us going on offense. It’s easy to shoot but when you can stop some on defense and get out, it kills the other team. I think if we lock in on defense, that’s the biggest thing. Then we can get out on the break and that kind of propels our offense.”
On losing Nick Emery
“The biggest thing for Nick now is to find himself. This is bigger than basketball and we always have his back. But looking forward for the team, it’s now time to move on, for the next guy to step up. For Nick, as a captain, we support him in his decision, but as a team we’re moving forward and everyone’s ready to step up.”
Dalton Nixon
On playing 20 minutes
“I feel like I can produce some good energy off the bench and be able to really have a spark on defense and then be sound on offense to make plays and to get the ball side to side and inside out and find the open guys like Eli was tonight. That’s how I see myself being able to contribute to this team.”
On playing Mississippi Valley State
“They were longer, more athletic than the teams that we’ve previously played in a couple of exhibition games, but I thought we did a good job of really controlling the tempo and playing our style of basketball. And defensively they were able to get some offensive rebounds early on, but we were able to tighten it up on the glass and really control the game like we wanted to.”
BYU head coach Dave Rose
On the game
“I’m impressed with the way our guys handled these last few days. I thought that we had a really good game plan tonight and executed it well. MVSU is a really athletic team that really likes to drive you and attack you one-on-one. Their schemes are good but I felt pretty confident that we could guard their schemes but I was kind of worried about being able to handle their athleticism and their length. You can see early in the game that they attacked us pretty well and made some pretty good shots, but we stayed with what we were doing and started to play pretty good offense and we had some guys make some shots.”
About Nick Emery
“Distractions come in all shapes, all forms and all sizes and this is one that is extremely personal to our guys because they lost a good friend, not just a teammate.”
On Elijah Bryant’s performance
“Tonight, Elijah was near perfect in his offensive execution. He was good. He was patient and had a good pace and was aggressive.”
On tonight’s win
“You always want to get that first win. It’s important for your team and for confidence. But the way you get that win, I think for this group, will really help us because we did that the way that we practiced the last six months. We did that by sharing the ball, making the right play, having a real defensive mindset and we rebounded the ball really well.”
Mississippi Valley State Head Coach Andre Payne
Overall impressions of the game
“I thought that we started out the first 10 minutes of the ball game playing well, but then we shut down in the second 10 minutes. BYU’s guys are too big and too good for us to go seven or eight minutes without scoring. I would rather have them scoring six points in the first half and six in the second half, than 12 points in the second half because now you are down too far. It was a learning experience. We have 11 new guys out of 13, so that is going to happen. Now, we have to bounce back and play Utah.”
Trying to defend Yoeli Childs
“The second half of the game, he took over. In the first half of the game we did a decent job not letting him get those easy buckets. I think that he figured out that he was bigger, stronger and faster. He is a difficult guy to match up with because of his athleticism, size and strength.”
The problems Elijah Bryant gives to a defense
“When you are two or three inches over the guy that you are guarding and you can knock down open shots, that makes a huge difference. We can’t coach height. The thing that I was most disappointed in was that BYU won all the 50/50 balls. We can coach hustle. We can’t coach height.”