BYU's Rose perched for Cougar three-peat title

Championship teams find ways to ride ups and downs of seasons and finish with flair.

BYU’s basketball team did that Wednesday night in Laramie by defeating the Cowboys on their home court, ending a five-game win streak by Health Schroyer. The result? BYU climbed into a three-way tie with Utah and New Mexico heading in Saturday’s final game, a home court affair against Air Force, the league’s doormat.

You can chalk that one up as a W. Just like Utah can do in the Ute final against TCU. New Mexico, however, must play the Cowboys on Senior Night in Laramie, the final game of super guard Brandon Ewing before his home crowd.

This was an interesting win. For the fourth-straight game the Cougars came out cold — ice cold. They started by making just one of their first 10 field goals. Doing this against a team that is 13-1 on the year should have been fatal.

The game wore on and BYU won the game by wearing down the Cowboys. Towards the end, Wyoming simply could not make field goals, they had no legs. This is a place there is a sign in the visiting locker room that says welcome to 7,200 feet altitude. It wasn’t the visitors who were gasping for air with hands on hips at the end of this one.

Lee Cummard and Jonathan Tavernari simply overpowered the Cowboys with their offensive prowess. A killer three by Jimmer
Fredette, who wasn’t having an especially great night, put the dagger in the Cowboys with just over a minute left.

BYU displayed championship moxie in Laramie tonight because, again, they did not play that well the first 20 minutes, yet had better chemistry, more hustle, were in better shape, had more consistent weapons and played better defense while handling the ball better than Schroyer’s team.

Tavernari answered his goose egg against Utah by posting hisw sixth double-double of the season with 19 points and 11 rebounds. He hit 7 of 16 from the field and 3 of 6 from the three-point line. He also had a block.

Cummard made another case for repeating as the league MVP with 24 points. He had eight rebounds and was 13 of 15 from the foul line.

I still think Utah’s Luke Nevill deserves consideration as the league MVP, but with two-subpar performances in losses at BYU and UNM, I believe it only fair to consider another cop out by the MWC and name co-MVPs of the league and elevate Cummard to that honor also. Cummard’s performance in Laramie was an MVP job if there is one in this league. Playing with a younger, less experienced team around him, Cummard helped the Cougars deliver another title, his third in a row as a Cougar, submitting BYU will defeat AFA Saturday.

Fredette didn’t have the same fireworks as in the last two games, but he ended with 15 and had a career-high eight rebounds. He had two assists and tied a career high with a perfect six for six from the line.

Emery led the Cougars with six assists as BYU finished with just eight assists for the entire night.

Rose has apparently done it again. With a 5-3 record on the road in MWC play, BYU is the only team in the league with a winning road record. That is coaching.