ORLANDO, Fla. — The 18th-ranked BYU Cougars have said all along that absolutely nothing will come easy in their first season in the Big 12.
Then they went out Saturday afternoon and proved it, nearly blowing a 13-point lead with less than seven minutes remaining before hanging on to escape UCF 63-58 in front of an announced crowd of 9,137 at Addition Financial Arena.
"Proud of our guys for fighting," said BYU coach Mark Pope. "It was a slugfest, like we kind of anticipated and expected coming in. We came out with a win and we are super proud of that."
It wasn't just an ordinary win. It was not only BYU's first Big 12 victory, but it was the Cougars' first road win since Jan. 7 of 2023, snapping a seven-game skid.
It was also Pope's 100th win at BYU, and his players presented him a jersey with his name and No. 100 on it in the locker room after the game.
Yes, they've been holding on to it since Jan. 6, when the Cougars (1-2, 13-3) were upset 71-60 at home by Cincinnati and reminded that nothing ever comes easy in this league — not even at home.
They took it with them to Baylor, where they also had a nice lead in the second half but couldn't finish and fell 81-72 to the No. 14 Bears.
Saturday, about 27 miles from Disney World, and with at least a couple hundred BYU fans cheering them on, they picked up a character- and confidence-building win.
BYU made just enough plays down the stretch, made just enough free throws, to hand UCF (1-2, 10-5) a deflating loss after the Knights had stunned No. 3 Kansas on Wednesday in this same venue.
"We just kinda found a way to patchwork it together," Pope said.
This was a game the Cougars had to get — the second of five-straight Quad 1 games on the January docket — and they deserve credit for hanging on, especially after what happened four days ago at No. 14 Baylor.
Some of the Cougars' deficiencies were again exposed, but so what? A win is a win, and as the sun went down in this tropical paradise, the Cougars weren't thinking about how some of their key players disappeared in another league contest, or about how they missed four crucial free throws in the final three minutes, or about how they almost blew another double-digit lead in the final 20 minutes.
"It feels great," said junior center Aly Khalifa . "We were so close the past two games. Just to see us win this game on the road, against a really tough team on the road in a really tough environment, it just feels great.
"We feel like we belong in this conference, the best conference in the world, and we can get a lot of wins in this conference as well. It just feels awesome."
Khalifa was the difference on a day when fellow bigs Noah Waterman, Fousseyni Traore and Atiki Ally Atiki all struggled. The "Egyptian Magician" was 6 of 12 from the field for a team-high 17 points while also grabbing four rebounds.
His passing wasn't as crisp as usual for the nation's leader in assist-turnover ratio, as he had one assist and four turnovers. But the Knights gave him space at the 3-point line, and he delivered 3 of 8 shooting from beyond the arc.
He also went to the rim hard for a dunk in traffic with 11 minutes remaining to give BYU a 46-36 lead.
"Nobody expected that, obviously. Nobody in the whole world, I guess," Khalifa said, then added with a smile: "Many more to come."
Meanwhile, Waterman was 0 for 3 and didn't score (he did grab seven key rebounds), Traore played just seven minutes, still didn't look like his 2022-23 self and had just two points and a rebound. Atiki fouled out in six minutes, 36 seconds of playing time and also didn't score.
Team fouls were 22-18 against BYU, and the Cougars earned almost every one of theirs, but somehow the visitors won this game against one of the tallest teams and best defenses in the country.
It happened because BYU played really good defense and benefitted by some horrid UCF shooting at the free-throw line.
The Knights were 21 of 33 from the line, while BYU was 12 of 17, a disparity that will be seen a lot this season because the Cougars rely on 3-point shooting, don't really have many guys capable of taking it hard to the rim and struggle to stay in front of opposing guards when they choose to drive to the basket.
UCF shot just 29.3% for the game. The Knights made their first three 3-point attempts to jump out to an 11-7 lead, then missed their next 15 and finished 3 of 18 from deep.
"I thought our guys did a pretty good job of having their guys that we wanted to shoot the ball shoot the ball," Pope said. "And then also the guys that we didn't want shoot the ball, we (gave) some extended pressure and made those shots really difficult.
"And then sometimes you get fortunate, too," he added. "On our side it was a little bit fortunate, too."
Still, the Knights made a game of it, with hundreds of students waving palm fronds and relentless pressure on the offensive glass. They finished with 17 offensive rebounds, but only got nine second-chance points.
That was almost enough.
When Khalifa made his third 3-pointer with 7:17 left, BYU had a 57-44 lead, but the Cougars would get just one more field goal the rest of the way — a teardrop shot by Traore — and committed a couple big turnovers that fueled UCF's rally.
Trevin Knell added 14 points and Spencer Johnson chipped in 12, making up for Jaxson Robinson's off night. BYU's leading scorer was 3 of 7 from the field for seven points and did not get a rebound.
Dallin Hall (three points, six assists) made a free throw with 49 seconds remaining to give BYU a 60-58 lead. UCF's Darius Johnson (18 points) committed a turnover, but Robinson missed a free throw with 23 seconds left to give the Knights life.
However, BYU forced a held ball, and then took a 61-58 lead on Spencer Johnson's second free throw after he missed the first.
Jaylin Sellers' 3-pointer wasn't close, and BYU escaped when Richie Saunders drained a couple free throws with 1.1 seconds left.
"In the waning moments of a game, especially when the gym feels like that and it is hotly contested, on both sides of the ball their aggression was hard for us to handle," Pope said. "And we just had just enough guys come and make plays."
The Cougars weathered UCF's early shooting to take control midway through the first half. They took a 26-24 lead at the break, the third time in as many Big 12 games as they've led at halftime.
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Pope disagreed with this reporter's assertion that the final moments weren't pretty, and that BYU held on despite misfiring from the line in the final few minutes.
"I would have to disagree with you," he said. "I thought it was actually beautiful. I think that's what you look for in a big-time college basketball game, is two teams just spewing their heart out on the floor. I actually think it was the most beautiful ending."
One that certainly beats the alternative. In the Cougars' first two Big 12 games, they learned all about that.
