The following notes are from BYU's 93-72 win over Long Beach State on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, at the Marriott Center.
ALL-TIME SERIES RESULTS: BYU leads 7-5
TEAM NOTES
First Half
The Cougars were first up on the board after a driving layup by senior Te’Jon Lucas. The Beach answered back with several baskets, going up on the Cougars 8-4 in the fourth minute of play. The teams continued exchanging brackets, but Long Beach State held onto the lead at 19-15 in the ninth minute of the first half. The Cougars struggled from outside the arc in the first half, going 1 of 7 from the three-point line. With 10 turnovers, BYU went into the locker room behind The Beach 46-41. The Cougars finished the first half shooting 50 percent from the field, 20 percent from the three-point line and 78 percent from the charity stripe. Long Beach State finished shooting 37 percent from the field, 21 percent from the three and 89 percent from the free-throw line. Caleb Lohner finished as the top scorer for the Cougars with 9 points going into the locker room.
Second Half
Gideon George started the scoring for the Cougars in the second half with a three-pointer. Followed shortly thereafter, Lohner knocked down his own three-pointer, putting BYU in the lead 49-48 for the first time in the game. The Beach had a three-minute scoring drought and the Cougars went on an 8-0 run to go up 57-52 with the help of two baskets by senior Alex Barcello and another by Lohner. The Cougars continued their momentum with a 21-0 run, topped off by three-pointers from Barcello, Spencer Johnson and Trevin Knell, putting BYU ahead 78-57. This marks the longest run for BYU this season. BYU continued to play strong on the court, ending the night with a 93-72 win over Long Beach State. The Cougars finished the night shooting 55 percent from the field, 36 percent from the three and 73 from the free-throw line. The Beach ended shooting 33 percent from the field, 14 percent from the three and 76 percent from the charity stripe.
Five Cougars Finish in Double Figures
The Cougars had five different players score in double figures for the second time this season and first since a 81-64 victory over Texas Southern on November 24, 2021.
Second Half Shooting
BYU went lights out in the second half shooting with just under two-thirds of its shots falling at 60.6 percent from the field along with hitting 44.4 percent of the team’s three-point attempts.
Assists
The Cougars finished the night with 28 assists. Lucas posted the most with seven, followed closely behind by Barcello with five. Long Beach State finished the game with just four assists for their 72 points.
Rebounding
The Cougars dominated on the glass, outrebounding LBSU 45-30.
PLAYER NOTES
Caleb Lohner
Caleb Lohner scored a career-high 20 points going 9-of-11 from the field including making his only attempt from 3-point range.
Fousseyni Traore scored in double figures for the sixth straight game as the freshman finished with 11 points to go along with seven rebounds and a game-high three blocks.
Gideon George
Gideon George was one point away from his season-high with 16 points, shooting 6-of-9 from the field and 2-of-3 from 3-point range.
Alex Barcello
Alex Barcello hit three 3-pointers, giving him 85 triples on the season and moving him into a tie for 6th on the single season 3-point list.
Notable Career Highs:
Career-high points: Caleb Lohner (20)
Career-high rebounds: Atiki Ally Atiki (9)
COACH AND PLAYER QUOTES
Mark Pope
On playing Long Beach State
“We love playing terrific teams and they’re a championship team. They won their conference championship and that is not easy to do, so it says a lot about their team. It’s always fun to play really good teams, and certainly they are that.”
“It’s a game that begs for assists. They’re going to send a second defender on the press, on the post, they’re going to send a second defender everywhere and switch everything up, so we just had to keep pushing and moving the ball and staying on attack, we’re going to end up with a lot of assists.”
On team performance
“Whether we play well or not, we fought, this team has a lot of fight in them, and certainly these guys proved it again.”
On playing in the Marriott
“We must be the luckiest team in the world that we get to play in this building and these fans come and show out, it’s a gift. They make a huge difference.”
On going up 20 points in four minutes
“I felt like we were holding ourselves back a little bit in the first half and what I mean by that is that we were trying too hard not to make a mistake against pressure. We also needed to find our whole hearts. It was there the whole night, but we just got more and more comfortable attacking until we found our rhythm.”
On Northern Iowa
“They have one kid who is a scoring machine. I know they are really well coached and I expect them to shoot the ball well. I expect this game to be a great match-up.”
Caleb Lohner
On game tonight
“I think we had a little bit of fun tonight, I mean tonight was a good showcase of us kind of playing together. It took us a while to kind of get it turned on and start playing like us but I think that’s just some of the emotion going into it but we ended the game on a high note and we’re going to the next round.”
On 20-point run
“I think it was us just playing and having fun, trusting each other. We also started getting stops in the second half, and those led to transition buckets and it just kind of gave us some juice on the offense.”
On being in the NIT Tournament
“This isn’t exactly where we wanted to be, we wanted to be in the NCAA tournament. I think it kind of took us a second to realize we’re still playing basketball, this is so fun to get to be here together as a team and enjoy this moment. Let’s go play and keep winning and make the most of this opportunity.”
On team performance
“It shows who these guys are and we’re just going to keep coming no matter what situation we’re in. That’s one thing, I can personally trust every single one of these guys to fight for me. So I think the more we come together as a team and make plays for teammates the better off we’ll be.”
On career-high night of 20 points
“I think making good decisions and letting the game come to me helped. I didn’t force anything and I think all the offensive decisions I made tonight were nice and slow, and I was in the right spots. A lot of points came from great passes from Atiki, Fousseyni and Te’jon and shots started to go in.”
On making a run in the NIT
“Our approach is just the same as it has always been. We are going to go have fun, play the game of basketball, fight for each other and make plays. Tonight it was fun to see in the second half that we were playing for each other at a really high level and it showed. It all just comes down to us wanting to play more.”