BYU vs. Notre Dame postgame notes and quotes

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BYU vs. Notre Dame game story

Player Notes

  • Tyler Haws netted 21 points for his fourth straight 20-point game and his 25th game scoring double figures and eighth game scoring 20.
  • Tyler Haws collected two field goals in the first half, giving BYU a 30-28 lead on a left-handed lay-in at 1:45. Haws got his first field goal off a hanging bump and finish at 13:52 to give BYU an 11-8 lead.
  • Brock Zylstra led BYU with 10 points in first half, including a lay-in that gave BYU a 24-22 lead.
  • Brandon Davies got in early foul trouble with two in the first five minutes of the first half, missing the final 15 minutes and was replaced by Ian HarwardIan Harward responded with 7 points on 2 of 3 shooting and 3 of 4 from the free throw line.
  • Josh Sharp had a career-high 10 rebounds, including seven offensive boards.

Game Trends

  • The game was tied at 16, 24, 26, 28 and 30 points in the first half and 38, 40 and 49 points in the second half.
  • BYU had a 13-2 run early in the second half, fueled by Tyler Haws's three-point play and converting a pair of free throws to give the Cougars their biggest lead of the game at 47-40.
  • Notre Dame countered with a zone defense in the second half and a 16-2 run which ended on a Tyler Haws field goal at 8:24 with the score favoring the Irish, 58-53 at 8:24.

Team Notes

Other

  • Notre Dame leads the basketball series against BYU, 5-3 and leads the football series against the Cougars, 5-2. This year is the first time the two schools have met in both sports in the same calendar year.  The two basketball teams were 1-1 (Atlanta 1981 and New York City in 1956) against each other at neutral sites prior to tonight.

  • Among BYU's last trips to New York City was in 1988 when it lost to St. John's in the finals of the Lapchick Tournament.  The day after that tournament when BYU players returned from Church meetings, a fire in their New York City hotel prevented them from returning to their rooms.  While watching fire trucks from the outside awaiting permission to get inside the hotel, some of the BYU players befriended a fellow bystander, then Mayor Ed Koch, who arranged for a police escort for BYU's team to JFK Airport in time for their flight. Tyler Haws’ father, Marty, was a junior on that 1988-89 BYU team.

BYU Coach Dave Rose

“I think our players and our coaches feel fortunate that we were able to participate in the tournament and I think that if you ask all of our guys they are disappointed in the outcome of the game. I think that it was a good learning experience for us--we have a lot of work to do to get better, it’s early in the year."

"I thought tonight we competed a lot better, I thought we had the game kind of how we wanted in the second half, but then Notre Dame did what they do. They made the possessions really long, they executed really well, hit their free throws and they turned us over. They kind of locked us up there for a few minutes and that was the story of the game. We just have to get home and get better.”

On Harward's performance:
“I think that’s probably one of the positives of the two nights, the fact that we had some guys come in and get some minutes that we are going to really need soon. Ian was really good tonight with the minutes he got. It will be a learning curve for him as well. Those were the best eleven minutes he's played to date so that’s good.”