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NEW YORK CITY — The BYU men's basketball team was blitzed in the first half of the National Invitation Tournament semifinals by top-seeded Valparaiso, falling behind by 14 points.
Like the Cougars have done all season, they fought back — taking a narrow lead late and trying to scratch, claw and hold on for a trip to the championship game.
It just wouldn't go.
David Skara’s 3-pointer with 17 seconds remaining helped Valparaiso hold off BYU in the NIT semifinals, 72-70 Tuesday evening at Madison Square Garden.
Skara finished with 15 points and six rebounds, just two points off a career-high for the Crusaders (30-6), who advanced to face fourth-seeded George Washington in Thursday’s NIT final.
Alec Peters added 15 points and nine rebounds for Valparaiso, and Keith Carter scored 13 for the Crusaders.
Kyle Collinsworth led BYU (26-11) with 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals, and Nick Emery added 18 points and seven rebounds for the Cougars.
“Individually, they are extremely competitive guys,” BYU coach Dave Rose told KSL's Greg Wrubell. “Trying to find the right combination for consistency was the issue for us. We’d get on rolls during the season where we’d look unbeatable, and other times we’d have a hard time facilitating anything.
“We’ll look at the whole season, and try to figure out how we can do a better job of being more consistent. But I like the fight in our guys.”
BYU trailed by as many as 16 points early in the second half, but Collinsworth cut the deficit to two, 63-61, on a layup with 4:53 on the clock with his 15th point of the game, then tied it on a transition bucket less than a minute later. The senior from Provo High gave BYU its first lead of the game, 64-63, on that and-one play with 4:26 left that capped a 7-0 run.
Shane Hammink’s dunk on the other end 16 seconds later gave the Crusaders back the lead, 65-64. Kyle Davis’ layup gave BYU its next lead at 68-67 with 1:19 to play, but Hammink made 1 of 2 free throws on a drive to the rim to tie the game going into the final minute.
"I thought we were really resilient tonight, especially when BYU made some late runs," Valparaiso coach Bryce Drew told the Associated Press. "Pretty much the whole second half, they were making runs at us."
Chase Fischer finished with 16 points and three rebounds for BYU.
“I think that’s been us this whole season,” said BYU’s Corbin Kaufusi, who finished with five points and eight rebounds. “Sometimes we aren’t hitting our shots or playing the best defense, but we love to battle back. I don’t think there’s been a game all year that we’ve rolled over.
“It’s a hard loss, but the fact that we battled was so much fun.”
BYU opened the game making just one of its first six shots from the field and trailed the Crusaders 11-5 after six minutes of game time. The Cougars’ lone make in the first seven minutes was a 3-pointer by Fischer at the 18:03 mark, but turned the ball over eight times in the opening eight minutes.
BYU turned the ball over 18 times, but also grabbed 16 steals and forced 20 turnovers from the Crusaders, who out-rebounded the Cougars 26-14 at halftime. Again, the second half fared better, with BYU using a 21-16 advantage on the boards to edge Valpo, 45-42 on the glass.
The Cougars ended the half shooting just 36 percent from the field, but made 5-of-11 from 3-point range. Still, the Crusaders made 7 of 12 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes en route to the 14-point halftime lead.
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“They had a really good plan for Chase, a really good plan for Kyle. Nick was at a really high-paced speed common for a young guy in this setting,” Rose said of his team’s rough start. “But the one thing I wanted to see in the second half was that we competed; I knew we were, and that’s what this team is. They never quit one time this season.”
BYU cut into a 16-point second-half lead by Valparaiso with a 12-2 run, capped by Fischer’s transition 3-pointer with 14:13 left to pull within 50-46. Collinsworth had four points and three assists during the run, as opposed to just one assist in the first half.
The Cougars outrebounded the Crusaders 14-11 in the first 10 minutes of the second half and cut the deficit to four, 54-51, on Kaufusi’s and-one stick-back basket with 10:10 left to start the second-half run.
“Today, he came in and he was calm; he said we can get these guys,” Kaufusi said while attributing the comeback to Rose.”That’s exactly what we needed at halftime, and it’s what allowed us to fight back.”
Collinsworth ends his prolific BYU career as BYU’s all-time leader in rebounds and assists, and the top 10 in scoring and top three in games played. His 12 career triple-doubles blitzed the previous NCAA all-time record of six set by Drexel’s Michael Anderson and LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal while also setting a season mark in two separate seasons.
“We’re looking forward to that season where we end on a win,” Rose said. “I thought this might be the one, but we came up a couple of points short. Our goal is not to be in this tournament; this is a good tournament if things don’t work out. But our goal is to get to the NCAA Tournament and win our last game.”
Contributing: Greg Wrubell, Brittany Copeland
