{"id":130148,"date":"2026-01-20T08:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/130148\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T08:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:52:26","slug":"how-a-possible-road-win-at-texas-tech-escaped-no-11-byu-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/130148\/","title":{"rendered":"How a possible road win at Texas Tech escaped No. 11 BYU \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas \u2014 With nine minutes and 23 seconds remaining in Saturday night\u2019s Big 12 showdown between BYU and Texas Tech, a quiet hush fell over the crowd, aside from the couple hundred or so Cougar fans in attendance at 15,000-seat United Supermarkets Arena.<\/p>\n

The visiting Cougars were threatening to make the Red Raiders\u2019 recent mastery in the series disappear, as Richie Saunders\u2019 3-pointer with nine and a half minutes remaining pushed BYU\u2019s lead to 61-52. Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland got a quick timeout.<\/a><\/p>\n

What happened after that could reverberate throughout the remainder of the season for the Cougars, as the Red Raiders scored 32 of the game\u2019s next, and final, 42 points and rolled to an impressive 84-71 victory<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Texas Tech not only improved to 4-0 against BYU in Big 12 games the past three seasons, but the Red Raiders also snapped three noteworthy streaks that Kevin Young\u2019s Cougar squad had been cherishing.<\/p>\n

Gone is BYU\u2019s 13-game winning streak, its 12-game Big 12 regular-season winning streak and its six-game winning streak in games away from the Marriott Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were executing our game plan. We were just trying to keep the right matchups, and we were doing that in that stretch,\u201d said BYU guard Rob Wright, who scored a career-high 28 points on 9 of 17 shooting. <\/p>\n

A mild upset was definitely brewing, so what went wrong? <\/p>\n

BYU\u2019s downfall started, ironically, after Saunders swatted away a Texas Tech 3-point offering. Two offensive rebounds later, Tech\u2019s LeJuan Watts \u2014 who labors in the shadows of stars JT Toppin and Christian Anderson \u2014 hit a 3-pointer with 8:30 remaining to end a 2:33 Red Raiders scoring drought. <\/p>\n

Watts finished with a back-breaking 20 points and eight rebounds. <\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Texas Tech won by 13 points despite not getting a single point from its bench, as Toppin and Anderson played all 40 minutes and Watts went more than 35, while Donovan Atwell and Jaylen Petty logged more than 36 apiece.<\/p>\n

Yet Texas Tech was clearly the more energized team down the stretch, bolstered by a raucous crowd. <\/p>\n

Atwell was credited by McCasland for slowing down BYU star AJ Dybantsa, who was held to a season-low 13 points. Officials allowed the Red Raiders to bump and jostle the freshman phenom most of the game, and they took full advantage.<\/p>\n

After Watts\u2019 third-chance 3-pointer, Dybantsa missed a heavily contested leaner, and the game started getting away from the Cougars. <\/p>\n

More disaster for the visitors followed, as Toppin registered a 3-point play and banked in a 3-pointer on consecutive possessions, and Wright was assessed a rare offensive foul. <\/p>\n

BYU would go the next four possessions without scoring before Wright\u2019s bucket cut the deficit to 74-67. By then, it was \u201cturn out the lights, the party\u2019s over\u201d for the Cougars.<\/p>\n

Shot-making, or lack thereof, was the problem, Young said, refusing to blame the loss on a few critical calls at critical moments. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis game is about making shots at the end of the day, and obviously you got to stop them from making shots, and they put a lot of stress on you, because they have talent,\u201d Young said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re one of the best offensive teams, I think, in the country, because of how much shooting they have, with two dynamic players, and then on the flip side, we went cold, and that happens in games.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few calls down the stretch didn\u2019t go BYU\u2019s way, but Young steered clear of that topic in his postgame remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be very clear,\u201d he said. \u201cThey out-played us. They out-coached us.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Cougars turn their attention to another rivalry game with Utah, which knocked off TCU in the Huntsman Center Saturday afternoon to get its first Big 12 win of the season. <\/p>\n

The Utes play at Kansas State on Tuesday, so the Cougars will have a little more extra time to prepare for the rematch of BYU\u2019s win in Salt Lake City <\/a>on Jan. 10.<\/p>\n

Dybantsa saw his streak of 10 straight games of scoring 20 points or more halted, but Young is not concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ is a smart young man,\u201d Young said. \u201cHe\u2019ll learn from this, and he\u2019ll be better next time out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cougars on the air<\/p>\n

Utah (1-4, 9-9) at No. 11 BYU (4-1,16-2)<\/p>\n

Saturday, 3:30 p.m. MSTAt the Marriott CenterTV: FoxRadio: 107.9 FM\/BYURadio.org\/BYU Radio app<\/p>\n

Note: Utah plays at Kansas State on Tuesday<\/p>\n

The Cougars were hoping a top 15 win on the road would propel them back into the top 10 of the national rankings, but instead they will probably head in the other direction when the new AP Top 25 poll is released. <\/p>\n

Sunday, they dropped from No. 13 to No. 15 in Kenpom and from No. 8 to No. 11 in the NET rankings. They are now 4-2 in Quad 1 games.<\/p>\n

The Cougars were close to full strength Saturday, after Abdullah \u201cBido\u201d Ahmed missed the 76-70 win over TCU with a shoulder issue. The former G League player had six rebounds and blocked a shot in 16 minutes against the Red Raiders.<\/p>\n

However, fellow big man Khadim Mboup sustained an injury in the second half and did not return after nearly playing 17 minutes. Young said he didn\u2019t know the extent of Mboup\u2019s injury after the game.<\/p>\n

\"\"BYU forward AJ Dybantsa (3) draws a foul against Texas Tech during game Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Lubbock, Texas. | AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas \u2014 With nine minutes and 23 seconds remaining in Saturday night\u2019s Big 12 showdown between BYU…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17092,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-130148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-news-feed-local","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}