KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Fousseyni Traore had 14 points and 10 rebounds, Richie Saunders scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half and No. 20 BYU squandered a big early lead before pulling away late for an 87-73 victory over UCF in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament on Wednesday.
Dallin Hall also had 13 points and Trevin Knell scored 12 for the fifth-seeded Cougars (23-9), who hit 14 3-pointers and matched the bigger Knights on the glass to advance to play fourth-seeded and No. 25 Texas Tech in the quarterfinals Thursday.
Darius Johnson did everything he could to keep UCF alive, hitting six 3-pointers and scoring 32 points. But he didn’t have much help in the second half, when the Knights (17-15) briefly trimmed an early 18-point lead to just three midway through.
BYU answered with a 12-0 run that gave it the breathing room it needed to coast into the next round.
The Knights made their Big 12 tourney debut Tuesday, when they ran roughshod through Oklahoma State. And they still might have been catching their breath when their second-round game tipped off, because the Cougars ran right over them.
They opened their first tournament in the league by scoring the first 14 points as part of a 21-3 run to start the game.
The run by one of the nation’s prolific perimeter teams was fueled by 3-pointers along with some suffocating defense, which held UCF without a basket until Sellers converted a three-point play about five minutes into the game.
The Knights eventually found their footing, and despite a technical foul on their bench that gave BYU a couple of free points, they slowly trimmed their deficit to 47-38 by halftime. And when Clarke got hot to start the second half, and Johnson hit 3s on consecutive possessions, the Knights had closed to within 59-56 with 13 1/2 minutes to go.
That’s where the comeback fizzled.
The Cougars began getting to the foul line, Saunders hit a 3 from the wing and coach Mark Pope’s team unleashed that 12-0 run over the next four minutes, which pushed the lead back to 71-56 and effectively put the game away.
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