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BYU Basketball: Can Oral Roberts bounce back from buzzer-beater loss?

By Shaun Gordon

NORMAN, OK - DECEMBER 12: Ryan Spangler #00 of the Oklahoma Sooners tries to block Brandon Conley #5 of the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles during the first half of NCAA college basketball game at the Lloyd Noble Center on December 12, 2015 in Norman, Oklahoma. (Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - DECEMBER 12: Ryan Spangler #00 of the Oklahoma Sooners tries to block Brandon Conley #5 of the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles during the first half of NCAA college basketball game at the Lloyd Noble Center on December 12, 2015 in Norman, Oklahoma. (Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images) /
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BYU Basketball will take on Oral Roberts on Thursday night, and the Golden Eagles are coming off a heartbreaking buzzer-beater loss in their last game.

On Thursday night BYU hosts their second of three games this week, welcoming Oral Roberts to the Marriott Center.

This is a game that the Cougars should win and win easily, but a lot of that will depend on how the Golden Eagles respond after their last game.

While BYU was beating up Northwestern State on Tuesday night, Oral Roberts was locked in a tight game with Cal Baptist.

With less than 30 seconds left in the game the Lancers hit a three-pointer to take a 67-66 lead. After a Golden Eagle timeout Aiden Saunders responded with a trey of his own to put Oral Roberts back up by two with less than five seconds to play.

That’s when Cal Baptist’s Milan Acquaah took the ball near midcourt and heaved a prayer that was answered, giving the Lancers the last-second win.

The loss dropped Oral Roberts to 1-3 on the season, and losses like that tend to sting for a while.

It will be interesting to see how the Golden Eagles respond against BYU. If they use the loss as fuel they could hand with the Cougars, especially if BYU has another cold shooting night.

But if they don’t come out with that energy the game could be over pretty quick.

Here are the three things BYU needs to do to make sure they put Oral Roberts away for a third straight win:

  • Offensive Sharpness – While the Cougars ran away from Northwestern State on Tuesday, they didn’t play a very clean game offensively. They turned the ball over 15 times, and many of those were off of lazy or just plain bad passes. That’s something that BYU needs to work on fixing against Oral Roberts.
  • Defensive Focus – The Golden Eagles aren’t a good offensive team. They’re averaging just 65 points per game and shooting worse than 40% from the field, and they’re almost as cold from deep as BYU (26.6% to 25.3%). If the Cougars jump out to an early lead they may start to slip defensively, and that’s a recipe for disaster against less talented teams.
  • Hit the Bench Early – This game could be a perfect opportunity to give the BYU bench plenty of playing time. In order for that to happen, though, the Cougars are going to need to start better than they have been so far and keep running. The more time young players like Gavin Baxter, Connor Harding, and Kolby Lee get, the better.
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