Jan. 4, 2014
Final Stats
(Provo, Utah) - The BYU Cougars snapped their four-game skid with an 87-53 win over the USD Toreros at the Marriott Center Saturday evening. Junior guard Skyler Halford, making his first start of the season for BYU, sparked the Cougars (8-8, 2-1 WCC) with a career-high 28 points. Fifteen of his points came in the first half when BYU jumped out to a 41-23 advantage. Halford made 11-of-16 shots overall and 4-of-8 threes before leaving the game for good with 6:50 to go.
San Diego (9-7, 0-3 WCC) was paced by Chris Sarbaugh with a season-high 10 points. He was followed by Dennis Kramer (9 points), Johnny Dee (8 points). The 34 point loss is USD's worst since losing to this same squad two seasons ago here at the Marriott Center, 88-52 (Dec. 31, 2011).
Two areas the Toreros struggled in was shooting (20-58, 34%) and rebounding. BYU finished with a dominating 45-27 advantage in the rebounding department. On the other hand, BYU shot a solid 53% from the field (31-58) and knocked down 8-of-17 threes. Halford was followed in the scoring column by Tyler Haws (17 points).
BYU held a 41-23 halftime lead behind 15 points from junior guard Skyler Halford, and 10 points each from Eric Mika and Tyler Haws. He made 6-of-8 shots from the field, including 3-of-5 beyond the three-point arc. Halford came into the game averaging 6.9 points on the season. USD was led by Johnny Dee (8 points), but the team managed to make just 9-of-28 from the field (32.1%), and were dominated on the boards, 25-10.
BYU started the night on a 15-8 run to the game making 7-of-8 from the field as Eric Mika (6 points) and Tyler Haws (5 points) led the way. From there USD went on a 9-0 run over the next 2:24 to take a 17-15 lead at the 11:50 mark capped off by a Duda Sanadze lay-in. Sanadze led the run with 4 points, followed by three free throws from Johnny Dee. Sparked by two long threes from Skyler Halford, the Cougars answered with a 14-2 run over a six minute span to take a 29-19 lead with five and half minutes left.
In the second half BYU got off to another solid start with a 14-3 run to take a 55-26 advantage and pretty much put their stamp on the eventual outcome. The Toreros continued to fight, but the closest they would get from there was 25 points. BYU would cruise to victory the rest of the way.
USD returns to San Diego where they will play two home games beginning with Loyola Marymount on Thursday, January 9th at 7pm. The Toreros will close out the week with Pepperdine on Saturday, January 11th at 6:00 pm.
