The Good & The Bad from BYU Basketball's Win Over Texas Southern

BYU improved to 8-2 on the season with a win over Texas Southern.

Author:
Casey Lundquist
Publish date:
Dec 21, 2020 11:03 PM EST

BYU basketball improved to to 8-2 on the season with a win over Texas Southern on Monday night. Here is the good and the bad from the Cougar's 87-71 victory over the Tigers:

The good

To start the game, BYU dominated down low. Kolby Lee backed down his defender for a bucket on the first possession; Matt Haarms drew a foul on the second and then Haarms had a dunk on the third to give BYU a quick 6-0 lead.
Brandon Averette got into the lane and created problems for the Tigers in the early going. He drew one foul on one possession and he hit a floater on the next. When Averette is hitting floaters, BYU is really tough to stop.
Connor Harding has struggled from deep at times this season. He hit his first open three of the game.
On one possession, good ball movement from Harding to Lohner to Harward to Barcello set up a wide open three. Barcello's three gave BYU an 18-11 lead. A few possessions later, Lohner set up Barcello for another three.
Connor Harding hit another three to give BYU a 26-13 lead. BYU shot very well from deep in the early going starting 4/6 from three.
Matt Haarms contested a shot on defense that set up a Brandon Averette three. Haarms impacts the game in a variety of ways and some of them don't appear on the stat sheet. Averette had seven points in the first half.
BYU went scoreless for four minutes when they had a 36-21 lead. The offense was bad, but they only allowed two points in the same stretch to maintain a double-digit lead.
Matt Haarms ended the scoring drought and gave BYU their first field goal in over four minutes.
Early in the second half, BYU got two offensive rebounds (Haarms & Harding) that set up an old fashioned three-point play by Brandon Averette.
Good hustle by Matt Haarms saved one ball from going out of bounds. He was rewarded on the other end - his teammates got him the ball down low and Haarms made a baby hook with his left hand.
Alex Barcello found Richard Harward for a three point play the old fashioned way to give BYU a 55-35 lead. BYU pushed their lead from 10 at halftime to 20 at the under-16 timeout.

Caleb Lohner made his first field goal of the game with 13 minutes left in the second half. After Lohner's basket, BYU had a 16-5 advantage in assists.
Caleb Lohner set up Richard Harward for a two-handed slam. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Harward is such an asset as a backup center. Harward would start on most BYU basketball teams.
Brandon Averette stopped a 13-0 run by Texas Southern with a three, assisted by Alex Barcello.
Texas Southern cut the lead to nine with just over five minutes remaining and Brandon Averette hit a three to extend BYU's lead to 12. For the second-straight game, Averette was the man in key moments for BYU. He led all scorers with 30 points, a career high.
Richard Harward did Richard Haward things against Texas Southern. He finished with 13 points on 5/7 shooting and 5 rebounds off the bench.
BYU shot 40% from three against Texas Southern thanks to multiple threes from Connor Harding, Alex Barcello, and Brandon Averette.

The bad

Matt Harms came up hobbling in the first half after contesting a shot. He exited the game with what looked like a twisted left ankle. Haarms would eventually return to the game.
Late in the first have, BYU had zero field goals for four minutes.
BYU only scored six points in the last eight minutes (including the four minutes mentioned above) of the first half. Over that span, Texas Southern cut BYU's lead from 15 to 10. BYU took a 42-32 lead into the locker room.
In the second half, BYU had a 22 point lead when Texas Southern went on a 13-0 run to cut BYU's lead to nine with nine minutes remaining. In most games this season, BYU has at least one extended shooting drought - that's something they will need to fix before conference play.