The following notes are from BYU's 88-71 win over Loyola Marymount on Saturday Feb. 20, 2021, at Gersten Pavilion.
ALL-TIME SERIES RESULTS: BYU leads 14-5
TEAM NOTES
A Big Lead Throughout
The Cougars took off with the lead early in the game, all the way up to a 22-point lead at the half. The largest lead of the game was 32 points, and the Cougars finished with a win by 17. BYU never allowed LMU to take the lead.
Turnover advantage
BYU took advantage of every turnover, scoring 23 points off of 15 LMU turnovers. Loyola Marymount only scored 13 points on BYU’s 10 turnovers.
Hot Shooting
The Cougars shot a lot and shot well, shooting 55 percent to LMU’s 44 percent. BYU finished at 45 percent from behind the arc and 77 percent from the free throw line. Four Cougars made at least two 3-pointers, and the BYU bench put up 18 points.
PLAYER NOTES
Matt Haarms
Haarms reached a new season and BYU career high in blocks with five. Three of those blocks came in the first four minutes of the game. Haarms scored a team-high 21 points, shooting 7-for-8, had three assists and had two rebounds. This is the second game for Haarms scoring more than 20 points this season.
Caleb Lohner
Lohner came up one point short of his career high in points with 18. He was 6-for-10 from the field and 2-for-3 from behind the arc. Lohner put up big defensive effort with a game-high seven rebounds.
Alex Barcello
Barcello ended the game with 15 points, shooting 6-for010 overall, 1-for-4 of 3’s, and a 2-for-2 for free throws. This is his sixth game in a row scoring double digit points.
Notable career highs/career firsts
Career-high blocks: Matt Haarms (5)
COACH AND PLAYER QUOTES
Mark Pope
His thoughts overall on the game ...
“I thought our guys did an unbelievable job coming in with focus and fight, and our young guys Gideon George and Caleb Lohner did a really good job with really difficult defensive assignments, and then Matt Haarms was just off the charts tonight, in every facet of the game. His rim protection was probably the difference in the first half. His offense in the second half was extraordinary. It makes the game really easy when you just say ‘pass it to Matt,’ and let him go score.”
On Matt Haarms physicality improvements ...
“I’m so proud of him. He’s taken the idea of getting better every day, and he’s taken it really seriously. He’s been humble enough to say ‘I gotta do this’. He’s had an unbelievable road trip, and what a performance tonight.”
On the fact that six different players have led the Cougars in scoring in their last six games ...
“That’s a team. Rich Harward was like ‘I don’t know how anyone scouts us.’ Clearly, we’ve got to get way better, but right now at this point of the season, I am so proud of this group. You have 17 guys contributing, and you have a rotation of nine or 10 or 11 and it’s so hard. Guys have to work so much extra to make it function, and it takes a long time for the stew to kind of coalesce and be right. These guys are really working hard at that."
On the teamwork, humility and unselfishness of the team ...
“It’s hard to explain, in a way, how patient your players have to be when you’re trying as a team to organize itself as a collective group where you have all these pieces that, on any given knight, depending on matchups or feel, can take over. I’m super happy for our guys, because I think they’re starting to feel it. They’re starting to feel like this is something different that we haven’t felt before. It’s a little scary trying for it, but it’s got a really, really high ceiling, and we haven’t really approached that ceiling yet.”
“So many guys making really significant, huge contributions. Gideon George was a little quiet tonight, but man, did he have one of the greatest man-sized rebounds you’ve ever seen? It actually really important. We’ve got so many guys contributing, and it’s been really fun.”
On what BYU is all about, to Enter to Learn, Go forth to Serve ...
“What we can do together is really special. It’s way more special than what any of our guys can do individually or as a two-person collective or three-person collective. It’s a tribute to BYU. What these you men are trying to become ... to take this experience and take it out into the world and influence the world in the way that they’re learning to work together as a team and the incredible depth of reward that they’re getting for sacrificing for their team. They’re actually getting paid off individually 100-times over. The fact that they’re starting to glimpse that and believe it, it bodes well for the young men that they are. I know I’m waxing poetic, but I believe this. This is the core of who we are. So when you have moments when it comes together and works, it sure is exciting.
Matt Haarms
On two big road wins this week …
“It feels really good. The first time playing Pacific was a really tough one, so coming in there and beating them by almost 30 was great, and then coming in here and getting that dominant lead in the first half felt really good.”
On a season-high five blocked shots …
“I really give the credit to our coaching staff, especially Coach Burgess. He really worked on with me guarding Eli Scott not as the primary defender, but as the guy who’s coming when he’s coming off the dribble. We know he’s a really good passer off the dribble, so we really worked on my timing, making sure that I come when he can’t.”
On Caleb Lohner’s emergence …
“I think he’s doing such a great job. I’m really proud of him. It’s a guy I’ve tried to mentor him through the year . I’m always trying to be in his ear, talking to him. I talked about some things today I thought he can improve on. Late fouling out of the game, we can’t have when we’re going to be in the tournament. We can’t have him do that. He played a great game, but I think there are always some takeaways that he can learn from. He’s already such a dominant player, I can’t wait to see where he is in two or three years from now.”
On what’s contributing to the team’s success right now …
“At this point everyone has really accepted what they do best on this team. Guys aren’t trying to figure out where they fit on this team.… Everyone at this point really knows their fit, knows what they do best and knows what’s expected of them from the coaching staff. I think that’s really important for a team. You have teams that are trying to figure out into March what they’re actually good at. I think we really know what we’re good at, and all of our players know their defined roles, and I think that’s really important.”
On two important home games up next against San Francisco and Saint Mary’s …
“These teams have played us close. At their place, we kind of played the exact same game against both of them. We were down, four, six the entire game, and then with seven, eight minutes to go, led by Richard Harward and Caleb Lohner, both those games, we come in and we get like 10 stops in a row to end the game. We know these are tough teams. You can’t take anything for granted.”