It’ll be Cougs vs. Coogs Saturday as BYU men’s basketball will hit the road for their second conference game this season when they take on Houston at the Fertitta Center. Both teams took care of business in their conference opener, as BYU made quick work of Arizona State, while Houston beat Oklahoma State.
Houston will represent by far the biggest test for Kevin Young’s team in this young season, as they have been pretty dominant throughout the opening two months. On the other side, BYU has picked things up pretty nicely following an ugly loss in Providence a few weeks ago, having taken care of ASU pretty easily.
BYU: Saunders and Demin will be key
Against the Sun Devils, it was Richie Saunders who led the way with a career high 30 points. The junior has always been known for his tough defense and hustle plays, but now with five games over 15 points, he’s shown he can really score it this season too. Houston is excellent at defending the 3, so they’ll need him to do what he did on Tuesday, knocking down early threes, then driving to the hoop after the defense adjusts.
Another key will obviously be the freshman phenom Egor Demin. He took the basketball/NBA draft world by storm over the first month of the season but struggled and suffered an injury in the Providence loss. He made his return against ASU, but was quiet in terms of shooting the ball with just four points.
A maestro with the ball in his hands, Denim probably hasn’t seen anything like this Houston defense. But at the same time, this Houston defense probably hasn’t seen anyone like him. He’ll need to dust all the rust off if BYU has any chance to pull the upset.
And finally, the Cougar frontcourt will have to step up and contribute. Houston is 9th in the country in opponent percentage of points from two-pointers, meaning they lock down the paint and force the other team to rely on contested threes. J’wan Roberts can certainly hold his own defensively, so it will be up to Kevin Young to get either one of Keita or Traore going, and see if he can ride them the rest of the game.
Houston: Crushing defense and an experience offense
As mentioned earlier, defeating Houston is no small task. These Cougars are the number 4 team on KenPom, with the number 1 defense. Individually, almost every player is an elite defender, especially on the outside, where opponents are shooting just 20% from three.
As a team, Houston is often very aggressive defending the ball screen. Where most teams tend to sag or drop, the Cougars often blitz the ball handler, while rotating others to cover the roller. Egor Demin and Dallin Hall will need to be extra careful with the ball in order to avoid an onslaught of Houston steals and fast break points.
Offensively, Houston remains similar to last year’s squad. LJ Cryer is now in his fifth year, after three years at Baylor and last year in Houston. If you’ve followed Big 12 basketball during any of those years, then you know he’s a great shooter who can’t be left open.
Emanuel Sharp also returns, and has scored in double figures in all but two games this year. He’s shooting a ridiculous 47% from 3 so far, which has been a key factor in a Houston offense that tended to go cold last year, but certainly not this year. The Cougars lead the Big 12 in 3 point percentage so far at 40.6%
As a team, Houston’s experience certainly shows. They average less than 10 turnovers per game, and are top 30 nationally in turnovers per possession. They compete hard on the glass too. Both BYU and Houston are some of the nation’s best rebounding teams, so the battle for the boards will obviously be huge.
This could end up being BYU’s toughest game all season long, so there’s no shame in losing a close one in Houston. In fact, the last 29 visiting teams to walk into the Fertitta Center have lost, the longest win streak in the nation.
But, this game is obviously a huge opportunity as well. With BYU on the bubble right now, a win on Saturday would be an enormous resume booster come March. The key will be for the offense to find any way to score points. They’ll need to hit some threes early, and Demin and Hall will need to put on some of their best performances to pick apart this Houston defense. If they can do that and compete on the glass, they’ll be in as good of shape as they could ask for to break this Houston home win streak.