A lack of depth has become an issue for the Cougars, who have now lost four straight conference games.<\/p>\n
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU Cougars forward AJ Dybantsa (3) drives up the middle as Houston Cougars guard Emanuel Sharp (21) defends Saturday night in Provo.<\/p>\n
Provo \u2022 With 5:07 remaining in the game, BYU basketball coach Kevin Young opted to put AJ Dybantsa on the bench Saturday night.<\/p>\n
BYU\u2019s superstar had just hit a pair of free throws to trim No. 8 Houston\u2019s lead to four points.<\/p>\n
So why sit Dybantsa? One would think that Young would want the country\u2019s No. 1 recruit on the floor in crunch time of a top-25 matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was about to pass out,\u201d Young said afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think some of that rebounding was [adding to the] fatigue on his part. I knew the media [timeout] was getting ready to come, and so I thought we could steal another extra minute, or less than that, to be honest with you, because I was planning on calling a timeout and then just instead of him getting the full media getting an extra 30 seconds. That\u2019s what went into that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dybantsa finished with 28 points on 14 makes in the 77-66 loss to Houston.<\/p>\n
But the forward, who played 35 minutes in the contest, didn\u2019t necessarily agree with Young\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU fans cheer for star player AJ Dybantsa during Saturday’s game against No. 8 Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cNah, I was good,\u201d Dybantsa said when asked if he was literally going to pass out Saturday night. \u201cI probably think he thought I needed rest. He usually tries to take me out right before the media timeout, so I can get an extra minute. But, no, I was good. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why he said that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Young and Dybantsa might not be on the same page about the star\u2019s fatigue during crunch time, but it speaks to a bigger issue that the Cougars are having: BYU can hardly afford to rest Dybantsa.<\/p>\n
The Cougars had five points from their bench unit against Houston. Outside of Dybantsa, the rest of the Cougar roster went 12 of 39 from the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re searching a little bit, obviously, off the bench,\u201d Young said when asked about making any changes to the lineup. \u201cYou can make an argument to maybe then put one of the starters on the bench and put a bench guy in, so that you do have something a little bit more potent potentially coming off the bench. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is being examined.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU forward AJ Dybantsa (3) led the Cougars in scoring during the team’s loss to No. 8 Houston Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Young\u2019s Cougars clearly have a depth problem. <\/p>\n
And \u2014 if the Cougars want to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament \u2014 the answer might not be asking for more from the players around Dybantsa.<\/p>\n
BYU might need to rely on its leading scorer even more. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was great tonight,\u201d Young said. \u201cWhen he\u2019s rolling like that, you don\u2019t want to take him off the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I am going to challenge him a little bit about making sure he\u2019s doing all the right things and taking care of his body. Is he eating the right things? Is he drinking enough liquids? Is he getting enough sleep? We need him out there as much as we possibly can have him out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of depth has become an issue for the Cougars, who have now lost four straight conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14862,794,64287,56,2742,58,58053,57,53175],"class_list":["post-156066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-aj-dybantsa","tag-byu-cougars","tag-byu-mens-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-mens-basketball","tag-houston-news","tag-kevin-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156066","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=156066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}