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Provo • Final exams for BYU basketball players will be a little bit easier this week.
That's because the inconsistent Cougars finally passed a big test on the hardwood, beating the Pac-12's Colorado 79-71 with what an obviously pleased coach Dave Rose called their best all-around performance of the season on Saturday night at the Marriott Center.
"I thought tonight was good," Rose said. "Our guys really took a step forward. We've got some real tangible film that we can show our guys playing third, fourth efforts on the same possession that ends up in a stop for us. That's how this group is going to have to play. That's what we are. We are a work in progress. We are not a polished item at all. These effort games are going to make a difference."
After the Cougars ground out a 77-66 win over Weber State on Wednesday, Rose said his guards needed an infusion of confidence. They found that against the Buffaloes, hitting 9 of 19 3-point attempts (47.4 percent) after entering the game at 29 percent and ranking 328th in the country from long range.
They jumped to 297th (30.8 percent) after Saturday's games.
"I think we are shooters, so we are going to stay aggressive and stay confident and continue to shoot, and I think they are going to fall, and continue to fall, and we are going to keep shooting them. When we have bigs doing what they are doing down low, and if we can keep shooting like we did tonight, it is going to be tough to guard us," said TJ Haws, who was 4 of 5 from deep and finished with 16 points, four assists and two steals.
Not only did they shoot better and play strong defense, the Cougars dominated the boards, outrebounding the Buffaloes 46-31.
"Rebounding, we just got our tails kicked by BYU. There's no other way to put it," CU coach Tad Boyle said. "We got punked on the boards."
Colorado shoots 43 percent from the field and 35 percent from three, but was held to 38 and 24 percent by a BYU defense that stayed in man-to-man the entire game. The Buffs went without a field goal for more than eight minutes until Thomas Akyazili hit a three with 42.1 seconds left.
"I liked the way that [effort] felt," Rose said. "I liked the way the bench felt. I liked the interaction between the guys coming in and out. That is something that we have been trying to find for long periods of time. That was big tonight. A big part of the win."
Rose talks a lot about playing with confidence, and the Cougars looked like a totally different team than the one two weeks ago that lost to Utah Valley in the Marriott Center, or the one that went 3 of 11 from 3-point range against Weber State.
"The confidence in the 3-point shooting had kind of come the last five or six days," Rose said. "I was surprised the other night in the Weber game, because we shot the ball really well on Monday and Tuesday in here. These guys are starting to figure out a lot of things about how this works, and the attention to detail and the discipline and accountability that you have to have yourself to be able to perform at the level you want to play at. It was nice to see them go in — not only for the coaches, but I am sure for those players."
The players will get a couple days off for finals, then get back at it midweek and begin preparing for another game against a Power 5 conference team, Illinois, that could help build the Cougars' postseason hopes. Tipoff in the State Farm Chicago Legends matchup at Chicago's United Center is at 7:30 p.m. MST and the game will be televised by the Big Ten Network.
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU vs. Illinois
P At the United Center, Chicago
Saturday, 7:30 p.m. MST
TV • Big Ten Network