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Provo • For more than 35 minutes of game time Saturday night, the beleaguered Portland Pilots did their best to spoil what was supposed to be a cakewalk to BYU basketball coach Dave Rose's 300th win.
Until about five minutes remaining, the game in front of 13,775 at the Marriott Center was shaping up to be one of the worst losses in the coach's 12-year BYU career.
Then Davin Guinn took over.
Davin who?
The seldom-used reserve, once a walk-on, hit a 3-pointer to spark the Cougars on an 18-1 run and BYU escaped Portland's upset bid with a 73-62 win to get Rose to the milestone and save themselves some major embarrassment.
"It was a good way to win a game for a young team," said Rose (300-107), who became the 25th fastest coach, tying two others, to 300 victories.
BYU (17-8, 8-4 WCC) regained sole possession of third place because Santa Clara lost at Gonzaga, while the Pilots (9-15, 2-10) suffered their 10th straight defeat and sixth in a row since star guard Alec Wintering suffered a season-ending knee injury.
"We needed a lot of guys to play well, and that didn't happen," Rose said. "We had a lot of opportunities we just let go."
The Cougars pulled it out, though, two nights after losing 85-75 to No. 1 Gonzaga in an emotionally charged game that left the home team drained and playing uninspired basketball for long chunks. Portland had leads for more than 25 minutes.
"Saturday games are really tough because you give everything you've got on Thursday," said freshman forward Yoeli Childs, who finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Eric Mika led BYU with 23 points and 12 boards, but was just 5 of 15 from the field and needed 13 of 19 free-throw shooting to get to his 15 double-double. Portland's Philipp Hartwich and Ray Barreno fouled out trying to stop Mika, and the Pilots were whistled for 32 fouls in the Marriott Center debut of coach Terry Porter, the former Trail Blazers star.
"Tonight, we were trying to find that same emotion we had the other night [against Gonzaga], and that was kind of off, and it put everything off," Rose said.
Portland, coming off 60-45 and 68-52 home losses to Santa Clara and San Diego, was heading toward its biggest win in years when Joseph Smoyer hit a pair of free throws to give the visitors a 61-55 lead with 4:35 remaining.
But Guinn hit a 3-pointer 10 seconds later, his only points of the game, and hit defense up top in Rose's 1-3-1 zone disrupted a Portland offense that had been clicking until five minutes remained. The Pilots scored just one point, a Rashad Jackson free throw, after Smoyer's free throws as BYU went on a 18-1 run to end the game.
"That three Dav hit was huge, because we were having a hard time offensively," Rose said.
Portland shot just 32.8 percent, but stayed in the game by hitting five 3-pointers and scoring 11 second-chance points. Gabe Taylor led the Pilots with 20 points and D'Marques Tyson added 13.
"Portland is like LMU for us," Rose said. "Their athleticism causes us a lot of issues for us."
As for getting to 300 wins, Rose said, "It means now we can move on to what's next."
The coach expressed gratitude to the hundreds of players who have gone through his program, BYU's administrators, support personnel and "all the people that helped along the way."
Including a little-known player by the name of Davin Guinn.
Twitter: @drewjay —
Storylines
R BYU coach Dave Rose gets his 300th win and becomes the 25th fastest coach in NCAA history to get to that milestone.
• Reserve guard Davin Guinn sparks a spirited comeback with a 3-pointer and his defensive play and the Cougars escape Portland's upset bid.
• Eric Mika scores 23 points and grabs 12 rebounds for his 14th double-double of the season.