No. 23 BYU Basketball Takeaways From Win Against Utah
Mar 8, 2025, 11:08 PM | Updated: Mar 9, 2025, 12:54 pm
PROVO, Utah – The No. 23 BYU basketball team continued their winning streak with a senior night victory over the Utah Utes 85-74.
BYU out-scored Utah in both halves to get their eighth straight victory and lock down the fourth seed in the Big 12 tournament.
Let’s get to some takeaways from the regular season finale.
Battle of the boards favored Utah
The Cougars have only lost two games this season when they won the battle on the glass and they’ve won 20 games when they win that battle.
However, they only won a single game this season when they were out-rebounded.
Scratch that, now they’ve won two games.
Former BYU stars Blake Freeland and Taysom Hill are in the building. pic.twitter.com/9Hup8twyFM
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) March 9, 2025
Utah soundly beat BYU on the glass 53-34, but the Cougars countered that by dominating them in the paint scoring 40-24.
The Cougars have displayed an ability to win games of late when things aren’t going according to plan.
They didn’t shoot the ball well from the three-point line and they didn’t rebound well at times, but they still led throughout the entire second half. It’s a great sign heading into the big dance that BYU can find multiple ways to win games.
BYU basketball cold three-point shooting
The Cougars missed their first 13 attempts from deep before Dawson Baker made a triple on a nice pass from Mihalo Boskovic with 2:48 left in the first half.
It felt like that made shot finally opened the lid off the rim. They made 8 of 15 attempts after that poor start from deep.
Dallin Hall made a massive buzzer-beating triple to end the first half. He was at least five feet behind the line when he launched the shot.
COLD BLOODED AT THE BUZZER @DallinHHall 🥶
📺 ESPNU pic.twitter.com/5M2cianSMB
— BYU Men's Basketball (@BYUMBB) March 9, 2025
The Cougars carried that momentum into the second half where they opened up a double-digit within the first four minutes of the second half.
The cold shooting start was uncharacteristic for BYU. They rank third in three-point percentage in the Big 12 at 37 percent from downtown. They only trail Texas Tech and Houston in that category.
Bench production was key for BYU Basketball
The rivalry has produced some unlikely heroes over the years.
In the 2022-2023 season, Rudi Williams scored 26 points in a home win against Utah off the bench.
In 2016, Payton Dastrup made a couple of key three-point shots to propel the Cougars to another home rivalry win.
This game has a way of finding unlikely heroes. Dawson Baker is well on his way to becoming one of them if BYU hangs on to win.
— Matthew Baiamonte (@baiamontematt) March 9, 2025
This season, it was Dawson Baker. He finished the game with 15 points, which was a team-high. Baker went 3 of 5 from deep and made all four of his free throws.
His nine points in the first half were critical. He saw extended minutes with Richie Saunders battling early foul trouble.
The Cougars bench was tremendous in the first half scoring 21 points. It was a struggle offensively until Baker and Mihalo Boskovic got things going in the middle of the first half.
Two of the five BYU Cougars who scored in double figures came off the bench.
Versatility and optionality have helped BYU down the stretch. It’s been different players making big contributions throughout the eight-game winning streak.
Head coach Kevin Young believes the deep rotation makes it difficult for opponents to game plan against, which opens up opportunities for guys like Baker and Boskovic on any given night.
You can hear Matt Baiamonte every Saturday on KSL Newsradio for Cougar Sports Saturday from 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. or on Cougar Nation Monday nights from 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. You can also find him on Twitter @baiamontematt here.
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