BYU Basketball Takeaways From Complete Team Win At West Virginia
Feb 11, 2025, 11:56 PM | Updated: Feb 12, 2025, 12:14 pm
BYU basketball leaves the East Coast with a Quad 1 victory added to its resume after defeating West Virginia on Tuesday night.
College basketball’s silent guardian, watchful protector, more commonly known as Insider Jon Rothstein, said BYU’s 73-69 win in Morgantown “just moved the needle.”
BYU just moved the needle. Cougars go to Morgantown and beat West Virginia. The best victory that this program has had thus far under Kevin Young.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) February 12, 2025
The win improved BYU’s record to 16-8 overall and 7-6 in Big 12 play. Perhaps most importantly, it gave BYU a Quad 1 victory on the road to boost its potential NCAA Tournament resume.
“Best team win of the year”
The 73-69 victory was gutsy against one of the nation’s best defenses. BYU had to grind it out for an entire 40 minutes and they came out on top.
Ten BYU players scored in Tuesday’s win. Head coach Kevin Young felt it stood out above the other wins BYU has had so far this season.
“I just told our group in the locker room, probably our best team win of the year, just in terms of guys staying ready, not sulking or pouting on the bench and being able to come in and contribute,” BYU coach Kevin Young said after the win.
Players such as Mihailo Boskovic and Trey Stewart provided valuable contributions off the bench. Even backup point guard Dallin Hall knocked down two threes early off the bench to get BYU settled in.
It was an all-around effort on a night when BYU desperately needed a victory to end a three-game losing streak.
BYU basketball cleaned up the turnovers in the second half
Turnovers have hurt BYU basketball in losses this season. If they took care of possessions, they probably would have two or three more wins in Big 12 play this season.
However, the turnover bug reared its ugly face in the first half as BYU gave it up nine times to the Mountaineers.
“We had nine turnovers in the first half that led to, I believe, 13 points for them; that was a different story in the second half,” Young said. “I think that’s how we were able to even get just a tiny bit of a lead there.”
As Young noted, the second half was a different story. West Virginia scored only four points off BYU’s three turnovers.
BYU responded to the challenge of bringing the intensity on the glass
In last week’s losses against Arizona and Cincinnati, BYU was outrebounded in both of those games by 15 rebounds. Earlier in the week, Kevin Young wanted to see more from his team with the effort on the glass.
They responded against West Virginia. Despite trailing by two at the half, BYU had a rebound advantage of 23-13. They finished the game outrebounding West Virginia 35-25.
As was the case with scoring, it was a team effort, as four players had at least four rebounds, led by Fousseyni Traore with six.
Mihailo Boskovic deserves more time
Junior center Mihailo Boskovic played well during BYU’s eastern Big 12 road trip. On Tuesday against West Virginia, the 6-foot-10 big man came up with the game-winning and-1 to seal the game for BYU.
SEALED THE DEAL. pic.twitter.com/nKTKY0FYQe
— BYU Men's Basketball (@BYUMBB) February 12, 2025
“That three-point play, that was like at the end. I’m very glad that we won on that,” said Boskovic. “But you know, in this environment where it’s hard to play, it’s a great win.”
Kevin Young noted that the play was designed to get Richie Saunders coming off of a screen and a continuation was to have Boskovic slip behind it. For a seldomly-used player like Boskovic to improvise and make a basketball play at the end there was clutch. He’s shown that he deserves minutes heading into the stretch run of league play.
Boskovic finished with six points and two rebounds in nine minutes.
BYU basketball did an excellent job defending Javon Small
West Virginia guard Javon Small has performed like a Big 12 Player of the Year this season for the Mountaineers. In Tuesday’s road win, BYU limited the explosive Small to nine points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field. He still had nine assists, but it was only the second game this season where Small finished in single-digits for scoring.
Small had only field goal attempt in the second attempt in the second half.
BYU’s defensive effort against Small, led by starter Mawot Mag and reserve Trey Stewart, shined in the win.
“We put a ton of time and energy in trying to study his game. Coach (DeVries) does a great job of getting him in positions to score and so forth. But I think the credit just goes to Mawot Mag and Trey Stewart, along with the rest of our guys behind them. That’s something we talked about a lot. He’s a tough cover one-on-one, so we wanted to try to defend him with more than just one guy.”
BYU took care of business from the free-throw line
The charity stripe has been an adventure for BYU basketball this season at times. However, BYU took care of business with the freebies in Tuesday’s win.
BYU knocked down 13-of-16 from the free-throw line. That’s an 81% hit rate.
BYU had nine more free throw attempts than West Virginia had (6-7) in the game.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
