No. 19 BYU Women Hit Century Mark As They Cruise Past Santa Clara
Feb 24, 2022, 9:23 PM
Paisley Harding led BYU Women's Basketball in scoring with 18 points against Saint Mary's on January 13, 2022. (BYU Photo)
(BYU Photo)
PROVO, Utah – Following up their memorable senior day win over Gonzaga, BYU women’s basketball went on the road to put the finishing touches on a WCC regular-season championship. The regular season’s penultimate game was at Santa Clara, where BYU defeated the Broncos 103-66.
This season, it was the third time that BYU reached the 100-point mark in a game.
𝚃𝚆𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚈 𝙵𝙾𝚄𝚁 pic.twitter.com/RduWsGFpyx
— BYU Women's Hoops (@byuwbb) February 25, 2022
With the victory, No. 19 BYU improves to 24-2 overall, 14-1 in WCC play.
BYU got off to a slow start trailing Santa Clara 13-9 with five minutes remaining before BYU’s stars took over.
Senior guard Paisley Harding scored 28 points, 21 of which came in the first half. Her backcourt running mate in Shaylee Gonzales poured in another 17 and All-American candidate forward Lauren Gustin dropped 13 and five rebounds.
“We came out a little flat, but we changed a few things we were doing and the team really responded well,” head coach Jeff Judkins said. “We started to really share the ball and it was just a great team win. I am really proud of how they came together for that win.”
BYU shot 60% from the field and 48% from beyond the arc. The Cougars suffocated the Broncos on the defensive end, causing 18 SCU turnovers that led to 31 BYU points.
Along with scoring 31 points off turnovers, BYU also got 31 points from its bench. The leader in that group was freshman standout Emma Calvert, who scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field.
BYU closes out the regular season on Saturday afternoon at Pacific. A victory would give BYU an outright West Coast Conference regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the WCC Tournament next week in Las Vegas.
BYU women’s basketball was projected as a five-seed in Women’s Bracketology in Thursday night’s matchup. However, in this week’s AP Top 25, only one team has fewer losses than BYU and that’s the No. 1 team in the land in South Carolina.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
